BRADEN FASTIER / STUFF The sun still shines in Kaiteriteri during winter.

In summer they measure their business by bags of ice and queues to book, but in winter, summer boom-town businesses are enjoying the peace and quiet. Stuff reporters visited three coastal towns that fall quiet in the cold.

The scenery and sun doesn't change at Kaiteriteri beach over winter.

And for Kaiteriteri Kayaks operations manager, Australian and globetrotter Shaq Seeber, living in a golden paradise on your own in the colder months isn't so bad.

The company's popular kayak rental service falls silent over winter - reduced to advance bookings -but smaller groups means added flexibility.

"I've won the lottery basically," Seeber says. "The bay is empty so instead of having 20 to 30 kayaks all the time it's just you on the water, all by yourself - it's not bad at all."

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With only one permanent staff member, summer sees the company employing around 15 guides on seasonal contracts. During winter, three guides are on hand to take kayakers around Kaiteriteri or the Abel Tasman National Park.

In summer Kaiteriteri is your typical destination holiday town. Its golden sands feature in everything from New Zealand Tourism marketing material to insect repellent labels.

But despite the nipping cold this winter, businesses aren't struggling thanks to online deals and digital word of mouth, and neither does the visitor appeal of the Tasman hot spot – providing you don't want to go swimming.

For businesses which benefit from the tourist dollar in peak season, the inevitable winter downturn has in recent times moved from a period of cutbacks and consolidation to providing a steady stream of visitors looking to capitalise on the quieter months.

"For me, I enjoy this time of year more," Seeber says. "There's way more seal pup activity and there's no sea breezes to worry about.

"We go from sending out eight tours a day in summer, with every one of those carrying our maximum of eight people to just one or two [in winter], ranging from two to four people - it's a pretty massive difference."

BRADEN FASTIER Shaq Seeber is the operations manager of Kaiteriteri Kayaks. Winter season in the normally summer destination of Kaiteriteri is picking up thanks to internet deals and marketing.

For Kimi Ora Eco Resort owner Dietmar Glaser winter allows time for maintenance and an occasional holiday.

Arriving from Germany in 1984, Glaser left behind the Cold War and a family menswear legacy to create a health resort on a 12 hectare bush-clad property behind the iconic beach.

"If we stayed (in Germany), I would probably still be selling trousers," he says. "It was getting dangerous over there with all the acid rain. The forests were dying, you had all that nuclear power, and there were American rockets stationed nearby – so we moved and two years later, the Chernobyl disaster happened in the Ukraine."

From a caravan office amongst manuka trees, Glaser built Kimi Ora from scratch, developing a place for people to nurture and strengthen their health through organic vegetarian food, exercise and relaxation.

"In that first year, we only had a month where we were busy - I could have closed all winter because there was nothing - but I was happy because I was not an experienced hotelier and so building it slowly allowed me to learn."

BRADEN FASTIER Two people enjoy the beach to themselves in Kaiteriteri during the winter season in the normally summer destination of Kaiteriteri. The off season is picking up thanks to internet deals.

Now managed by his daughter Karina and son-in-law Aaron Dunbar, the resort has a roster of year-round permanent staff - including his daughter Angelika - while employing a fluctuating pool of seasonal casual woofers (international workers who toil on farms).

This winter, Aaron and Karina are enjoying a Bali holiday while Glaser holds the fort – a return to those early days.

Glaser says online booking has boosted winter revenue and extended the peak season to late April. But in any season the resort is full of day-stayers or overnight guests on the weekends, with its vegetarian restaurant cooking for up to 40 people on Saturday.

For the year to July 2018 Kimi Ora recorded an 89 per cent occupancy rate .

Kimi Ora's facilities, including indoor pool, spa or sauna and health centre, were the main drawcard, Glaser says. The resort's eco-focus - from electric room service cars to the 40 kilowatt solar panels generating power - and nearby mountain bike park attracted a new, modern clientele who didn't mind visiting long after the summer crowds vanished.

Back on the beach, half a dozen people are daring to paddle in the frigid Kaiteriteri waters.

They outweigh the queue for kayaks.

BRADEN FASTIER Kimi Ora Eco-Resort owner Dietmar Galser adjusts a sun umbrella for another beautiful day. Winter season in the normally summer destination of Kaiteriteri is picking up thanks to internet deals.

Nothing but goats and gumboots

It takes exactly 36 seconds to drive through Urenui.

It's a Taranaki town where farmers walk their goats by the sea, retired women play golf at 11am on a Tuesday, teenagers get their first taste of adulthood on New Year's Eve, and people go to the supermarket with no shoes on.

The town, 25 minutes north of New Plymouth, has a static population of 426, and this swells into the thousands between November and February as families flock to the beach for their summer holiday.

Urenui Beach Camp, set where the Urenui River meets the sea, becomes a hive of activity with kids riding their bikes and building rafts, while parents sit on camp chairs drinking cold beers from Four Square, located five minutes up the road.

"We're unlike most Four Squares. It's quite unique, people tell me that," owner Barry Cox says.

It's unique because of its isolated location on the west coast of the North Island. Once you've passed here heading north it's just rolling green hills until Mokau, and if you need a supermarket you'll have to wait another 45 minutes until Piopio.

This means Cox has to stock everything to meet the needs of holidaymakers, Urenui residents and farmers who commute from the hills to get supplies.

It's a responsibility the friendly shopkeeper takes to heart. A third of his floor space is dedicated to hardware.

Looking to restock your camp's supply of chips or crackers? Then why not grab an electric fence? They're conveniently on the same shelf.

BRADEN FASTIER The Kimi Ora Eco-Resort in Kaiteriteri. The winter season in the normally summer destination of Kaiteriteri is picking up thanks to internet deals.

Turn the corner and you'll find an aisle dedicated to camping equipment, with tent pegs, solar showers, barbecue tools, and gas cookers in abundance.

In another aisle there's a wall of Red Band gumboots for when a farmer's last pair has worn out.

"Some have travelled 15 to 30 minutes just to get here," says Cox, who refers to himself as a "townie" from New Plymouth, having moved to Urenui three and a half years ago.

"They come here, they don't want to add any longer to their trip. So if you need gate fittings and electric fences and that, we have it."

Ice creams, drinks, treats, and alcohol are the items Cox sells the most of in the summer. Anything weather related

"People have a different mentality when they come on holiday. They're relaxed, they watch their money at different times of the year but they don't really watch it here."

But in winter, when the beach bums have disappeared, Urenui's main street is largely left to the locals, with a few trucks passing through.

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Urenui beach takes just seconds to drive through.

The camp ground is mostly empty, its shop completely closed.

When Stuff arrives just a couple of young farming girls, sisters Briar and Caitlin, are wandering around with their goats, Tane and Hermione.

They're wearing Red Bands.

Four Square's freezer stocks 80 to 90 bags of ice, but in summer they can't keep it full. Like gold, Cox laughs. They sell 140 bags a day.

Winter turnover was 'good enough' to get by and a little less than half what they make in the summer.

Cox had never had to lay any of his staff off during the quiet season but altered his part-timers' hours from four to ten hours a week in winter up to anywhere between 15 to 30 in summer.

"Just for the tills. You're quiet for four or five months and then peak, particularly over Christmas and New Year.

"Summer is a chance to make a bit of hay while the sun shines."

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF Four Square owner Barry Cox pictured.

Giving back to the community

In scorching January the sun bakes the sand in the Coromandel's Whangamata and it seems as though half of New Zealand is at the beach. Lifeguards patrol the beach from the water's edge and their clubhouse just off the sand.

Behind them is Blackies Cafe, an outdoor eatery metres from the water's edge, is often swarmed with customers. The wait for food sometimes reaches 45 minutes and many struggle to find a seat.

While the idyllic town is known to most Kiwis as a great place for a summer escape, Blackies owner Michael Fleming says the reality is different for the town's small business owners, with the busy hustle and bustle of summer only really lasting from mid-December through to the end of January - for him at least.

Housed behind the surf lifesaving club in Williamson Park, Blackies cafe doesn't directly compete with the majority of businesses situated on Whangamata's main strip. The cafe is in a field of its own. Literally.

SIMON O'CONNOR/STUFF L-R Sisters Briar, 17, and Caitlin Groves, 16, walk their goats L-R Tane and Hermione through the camp ground.

In summer, the cafe is open seven days a week and on a single January day this year, they sold 375 smoothies. In January alone, it earns 30 per cent of its annual turnover. During that time Fleming and his team are making "in excess of 1400 coffees a day", using seven baristas and two coffee machines.

"And that's just people making coffee," Fleming says.

They operate four points of sale throughout this time. An icecream stand on the lefthand side of the building, two main counters in the centre, and a takeaway coffee stand on the righthand side.

However, it's winter now and on this day there are only five staff working - including Fleming.

He and staffer Natasha Aupouri-Tehuia imitate how they have to move in the summer to serve at the ice cream station: hip to hip, reaching over and around each other, one taking orders, one making them . But imagine another couple of people in the small space with them, they say.

Fleming points to the kitchen. It's crazier in there. Now, chef Sonia Matthews is working alone and freely moving about as she pleases to make a fresh batch of raspberry and white chocolate muffins.

"Adding the chocolate is my favourite part," she says.

But throughout summer, Fleming has at least 19 staff working at once. In winter, he will have a maximum of eight.

The cafe only started trading throughout winter last year. He took ownership of the business in May 2017, but said the cafe had existed since "sometime in the 1980s".

Fleming wants to transform the cafe into an all-year business. And having been open through only one-and-a-half winters, he already knows some of what needs to change to make winter trading more viable.

"It certainly was not a financial decision [to trade in winter] ... it's actually financially not that smart to do," he says.

JAKE MCKEE CAGNEY/STUFF Michael Fleming took ownership of Blackies Cafe in May 2017. Having existed since the mid 1980s, he wants to turn it into an all year business.

But he sees his winter and summer trading as two different businesses.

Broadly speaking, Blackies Cafe could consider its busy period begins in October - because of school holidays and Labour weekend - and end in March with Beach Hop.

But November is slow as people build into Christmas. A similar situation happens with the start of the school year through to Beach Hop in March.

Narrowly speaking, Fleming has the dates. December 27 to January 14 - "That's the busiest time."

This year, and last year, he will cut down from seven days to five in late July through to October. Next year he will drop to five days earlier.

During summer, the chiller out back is "so packed you can't even walk through it". The two drinks fridges are restocked twice a day, and every ice cream flavour is replenished once a day.

Fleming keeps stock in his own garage.

A new chiller, twice the size of the old one, was installed at the end of June.

JAKE MCKEE CAGNEY/STUFF Natahsa Aupouri-Tehuia serves a customer from the only point of sale Blackies Cafe operates in winter.

In winter Fleming doesn't need all of the space. Once, when the chiller broke last winter, it did not affect business at all - they comfortably fit the stock into the drinks fridges on site.

Fleming laughs thinking of the peaks and troughs of his business. Would he go back on his decision to trade throughout winter? No.

A group sitting nearby - the only customers at the moment - "that's $35 of coffee".

The cafe will make twice in a January day to what it would make in a June week.

"The reality is: I could close from May to October and I wouldn't be worse off financially."

But Fleming isn't going to give in. He's here for the challenge: "I try to be somewhat innovative." He adds extra seating throughout the summer (it's still not enough). He's added plastic shades to the sides of the sheltered seating to try keep some warmth in when the cold really sets in.

He also does it for the community. He has his regulars - "They're a necessity" - but he also views his cafe as his personal way of giving back to the community. With his business he can employ locals, support kids, schools, and sports teams with sponsorships. That is what drives him to do business in Whangamata.

As he talks, the rain begins to set in with the gunmetal grey sky acting as a stark reminder that Whangamata isn't always a summer paradise. A man arrives to order a coffee, a couple arrive not long after. Some grandparents arrive with grandchildren in tow. A dad brings his kids in, who salivate over the raspberry and white chocolate muffins .

Maybe they were intending to come to Blackies Cafe. Maybe a coffee was the great excuse to get out of the rain mid-walk. Either way, it's business.