After staying a while in the nature, we longed to come back to a town and found this jewel in the middle of Akaroa. It is situated right by the stream and if you are lucky enough to get a room or cottage by it, you can sleep like a baby with the sound of the water in the background. It was absolutely quiet and peaceful there. We enjoyed the beautiful garden in the back, had a great BBQ evening with other guests as well. And the first hostel with free wifi! I was able to swap my books thanks to the book exchange! And the staff was very friendly and helpful, guided us to a lot of great walks and activities, helped us to discounts and advised us about dinner specials! That was cool. We had a ride around town with the free bikes too, but thanks to the great location in the middle of everything we mostly walked around! Also the hostel is spotless clean, house slippers and hot bottles for everyone. We'll come back.

This BBH-affiliated hostel is well located in the charming town of Akaroa. They offer some rooms, some dorm rooms and a small space for pitching tents in the hostel's epic back garden. The garden is a great feature - stretching back to a little creek that runs off the hill and filled with flowers, herbs and seating. It's also a good place to dry clothes in the summer - the combination of wind and sun is perfect for it.

The kitchen in the main house is well equipped and also has a good space for eating food and relaxing. The room we stayed in was a good size, clean, bright and comfortable. However, it did overlook the main office of the hostel which was somewhat disconcerting.

The staff were extremely friendly and helpful, and recommended several activities both in Akaroa and Christchurch. There were only two small downsides we experienced: the morning we left the staff were missing for a while the morning we left, which made checking out a bit awkward. This was slightly understandable given it was the day that the manager started her Christmas holiday, but was of concern at the time.

The other downside was the lack of internet. There is a building next door which used to belong to the hostel, but no longer does. It uses one of the coin drop activated systems seen through Australia and New Zealand and was therefore massively expensive.

All that said, I would happily recommend this place to anyone visiting the town, and we're looking forward to our next trip.

We stayed one night at this hostel after finishing walking the banks peninsula track. The manager was lovely and helpful and the room was very clean. For the price that we paid, we were happy with the standard. It was obviously not five star, but it was in a very good location, right near the waterfront, the supermarket and the tourist info office. I would recommend to anyone looking for clean and friendly backpacker accommodation.