Understorey Room
Our smallest rooms, along the back of the timber wing, with the pines of Bowenvale Valley close to the glass.
NZ$205per night from
Details
HOTEL · BATH HOUSE · GAMING ROOM
HALFWAY UP DYERS PASS
A 58-room hotel at Cashmere, 96 m above the city: rooms, a restaurant, two heated pools, three event rooms, and one gaming room for adult guests.
Welcome to Red Timbers
The building went up in 1937 as the office and crew quarters for the timber yard that worked the plantations above Cashmere, and the heavy rimu framing that gave it the name still carries the roof. It has been a hotel since 2011: 58 rooms, a restaurant, two heated pools, three rooms you can hold a conference or a wedding in, and one gaming room for guests aged 20 and over. That is what a casino hotel means here — a hotel first, on a hill road, with a gaming room inside it and the city fifteen minutes down the road.
Rooms and suites
Five categories, 58 rooms, from NZ$205 a night. Most of them look at trees or at the flat.
The Milling Room
Eighty-four seats, one kitchen, a menu that moves with the Canterbury season.
The Rimu Room
The gaming room: 34 machines, 6 tables, blackjack and roulette. 20 and over, photo ID at the door.
The Bowenvale Bath House
Two heated outdoor pools and four treatment rooms, at the quiet end of the ground floor.
Meetings and events
Three rooms: 120 seated, 44 seated, and a boardroom for fourteen.
A hotel for sleeping, eating and meeting — with one room for gaming
Most of what happens here has nothing to do with cards. Riders come down off the Port Hills tracks at four and want a bath and a large dinner. Families take two Summit Road Rooms and spend three days between the hill and Sumner. Work groups take The Kauri Room for a day and are away by five. Someone is on the desk at three in the morning, and they will say plainly when the nor’wester means the chairlift is shut and the coast is the better plan.
The Rimu Room is one room in a building of many — lined in the same rimu as the stair, with 34 gaming machines, 6 tables, and a door that closes at three. It is open to guests and visitors aged 20 and over, and it is the only room in the hotel where that rule applies.
Accommodation
Five categories, 58 rooms
Rates are per room per night for two people, breakfast charged separately unless a package says otherwise. They move with the season; the figures below are where each category starts.
Silver Fern Room
The standard room and the one most guests book: north and east facing, with the city on the flat below.
NZ$262per night from
Details
Summit Road Room
Corner rooms with two aspects and a sofa bed that takes a third guest without crowding the room.
NZ$318per night from
Details
Timber Suite
A sitting room with a door that shuts, under the 1937 rafters. Two of the six have a wood burner.
NZ$447per night from
Details
The Heartwood Suite
Two suites, one at each end of the top floor, with a 14 m² terrace facing north over the city.
NZ$729per night from
Details
Before you write to us
Four things to settle first
Reservations answer faster when these four are in the first message. Everything else can be worked out afterwards.
| Dates | Arrival and departure. Two nights or more over Cup Week in November and over Labour Weekend, when the hill fills up. |
|---|---|
| How many people | Adults and children separately. Under-fives stay free in a cot; we have nine cots. |
| Which category | Or the budget per night, and reservations will tell you what it reaches on your dates. |
| What else you want | Bath house, a table at dinner, a car park under cover, a room away from the lift, an evening in The Rimu Room. |
Cashmere, Christchurch
Distances from the front door
By car unless the line says otherwise. The desk books shuttles, bikes, guides and tables in town, and will say when a booking is not worth making.
| Christchurch Adventure Park | 2.4 km up Worsleys Road, five minutes. Chairlift, bike park and zipline. |
|---|---|
| Victoria Park and the hill tracks | A twelve-minute walk up Dyers Pass Road, or two minutes in the car. |
| Cashmere shops and Barrington | 2.1 km down the hill, five minutes. |
| City centre and Cathedral Square | 7 km, about fifteen minutes. The 28 bus runs from the bottom of the road. |
| Hagley Park and the Botanic Gardens | 6 km, thirteen minutes. |
| Lyttelton | 11 km over Dyers Pass, eighteen minutes. Twenty-two through the tunnel. |
| Sumner beach | 12 km east, twenty minutes. |
| Christchurch Airport | 14 km, twenty-two minutes. Shuttle on request, NZ$34 for two. |
| Waipara wine country | 62 km north, fifty minutes. |
| Akaroa | 80 km, an hour and twenty. Hanmer Springs is an hour and forty-five. |
Host responsibility
How the gaming room is run
There are no cash machines in The Rimu Room and there will not be any. A clock hangs where it can be read from every table. The room closes at three, whoever is still in it. Staff are trained to notice and to say something, and a guest who asks to be excluded is excluded — confidentially, in writing, for a term between three months and two years.
Entry is 20 and over with photo identification, every time, including for guests staying in the hotel. If gambling is causing harm to you or to somebody close to you, the Gambling Helpline is free and answers at any hour on 0800 654 655.
58Rooms and suites
15Years as a hotel
128,400Guests since 2011
★★★★Qualmark 4 Star Plus
3Event rooms
Enquiries
Write to the front desk
One form for a room, a table, a treatment, a meeting or an evening in The Rimu Room. It reaches the desk directly and a person answers it, usually the same day and always inside one working day. If the answer is needed sooner, the telephone is faster — +64 3 337 4180, any hour.