Tales of Terry's Travel's: Island of Waiheke

Today we head over to Waiheke on the ferry

As we pull out for our 45 minute trip, we settled in to read

I did get a shot of the Auckland harbor from our seat

We boarded the hop on hop off tour bus

We got a nice bit of information as we were driven around the island. Our first jump off the bus was at Onetangi Beach about a third of the way through the tour.

We took a nice walk along the beach

Walking in both directions

I loved a the sea shells that were on the beach

The tide was out and the gentle waves were just rolling in

We were going to grab a drink here before we hopped back on the next tour bus to continue our tour. The place was really slammed, so we weren’t able to get anything there

The tour then went to Whakanewha regional park, where there were trails to hike and the Batch Winery and restaurant. We talked with a lovely park range and she showed us where the trail took off. In the above picture right where the shadows cross the road turned out to be my downfall, literally.

I took two steps onto what I thought was a damp dirt trail and both of my feet went out from under me. It was wet clay soil. I had a mud bath with my clothes on! Dale help me get out of the mud, then we turned around and walked back to the winery/restaurant. They were very nice and tried very hard not to laugh, but my black pants, my over-shirt and my fleece jacket were muddy. My pants were so bad that when I got into their individual bathroom I took them off and washed them out in the sink. Luckily for me I was able to squeeze most of the water out of them and use paper towels to dry them so they were only really damp when I put them back on. My over-shirt and jacket I just rolled up inside out. I cleaned my shoes off pretty well. Then I came out of the bathroom and meet Dale at a table and we had lunch. There was about 45 minutes until the bus can by again, so lunch was a good plan. I was grateful for plastic chairs as I did not want to sit on fabric covered ones with damp pants. Lunch was lovely and the view was awesome as you can see in the next couple of pictures.

It was a lovely setting. This island grows a lot of grapes and has a bunch of vineyards

It is out in the bay from Auckland, but there are some more barrier islands further out that protect this island from the southern cold winds.

The place reminded me a little of Napa Valley in early spring

This island is pretty rural by most of our standards.there is no public water to people’s homes. They have individual water tanks and collect rain water to use. If it is a dry year and they run out, it is quite expensive to get a company to bring in water to fill the tanks and if it has been really dry, the wait time to get the tanks filled can be weeks.

This was the restaurant we ate in

After we got back on the bus to finish our tour I took a shot of a couple of the homes we passed by

Also they had some small rivers winding down to the bay

Another of the many houses we passed

Okay he spring greens were so lush

There were several very small towns on the island at the thinnest part of the island it is only 650 meters wide

Roundabouts are the normal intersections especially in the same towns

This is Oneroa bay

The colors of the water was the most beautiful blues and we had a lovely sunny day

We decided to walk the last mile from the town of Oneroa to the ferry building as we got the commentary on the way when we left the ferry building.

They made nice parks along they way

And fun cafes, like the Shambala

The growth along the path was so thick and lush, it as hard to believe we were very near the water

Our trip back on the ferry was smooth sailing just like they way over was

After a shower, I had to do some laundry. The jacket and over-shirt were just as I took them off. Now picture the pants with mud like that on the rear and up both of the legs and that is what I looked like going into the restaurant bathroom to clean up. Luckily I had a short sleeve top on under all that so I still looked decent after I rinsed the pants. Because of the color and fabric, it was not noticeable that they were still very damp when we ate.