Waiheke Island

We left Waipu late morning and drove the crazy road over to Mangawhai. Fortunately this time we had no tailgaters, just a pickup truck hauling a trailer, going slow around all the bends wasn’t a problem.

We made it to the end of the detour in Wellsford and stopped for coffee and real fruit yogurt cones. Yum! Returned car to the airport car return, bus to airport, Uber to ferry terminal, ferry to Waiheke, where Gaye picked us up to drive to the Airbnb. Quick trip to Countdown for groceries, a fabulous bottle of Passage Rock Syrah, and delicious Indian takeaway.

The airbnb, Villa Pacifica, is on the south central part of the island with a terrific westerly view across the bay to Auckland. Our unit was attached to the owners’ home. 2 smaller units were a few yards away. Other than comings and goings of the family and other guests, the location was quiet and comfortable. And they provide a car for their guests, a deciding factor when booking this place.

The next day we looked for the trail that led off the property. Turned out to be a very steep dirt road, a bit too steep to easily walk down. Instead we went off and found a track through a lovely fern-tree forest. The path was quite narrow, winding its way down into the valley to a trickle of a stream bed at the bottom. The towering tree ferns had bare trunks showing the rings where the old fern stems had fallen off, with foliage quite high up. Lots of understory ferns too. This track ended on the road below our Airbnb, so we found the other end of the steep drive and climbed up. Felt like one of my steeper iFit workouts! Lazy rest of the day with leftovers and more Passage Rock Shiraz. Cricket update, NZ not doing well.

Next day a cloudy, chilly walk on Onetangi beach, near where we’d stayed in 2020. Trip to Countdown for groceries. Delicious black bean burgers for dinner.

An absolute deluge of wind and rain the next day. Reading, relaxing. Decided we’d stay one more night, rather than head to the Hilton in Auckland for our last night.

Another mixed weather day. When the sun finally came out, we drove to the grocery store again, stopped at the “fancy foods” store and bought a pizza. ATM for cash for the extra night. Then on a whim, we tried to find the parking lot for beach far below our Airbnb. But I asked Google for the wrong location. We ended up high above the beach and driving through narrow, winding roads. Flashback to other stressful NZ roads!

And one final day, very sunny and windy. We finally got to the main town of Oneroa. A typical tourist town with lots of little shops. Stopped at the post office in Papers Plus to mail postcards to Rocky’s professor and packages of fabric stars to Kim and Kat. Visited the library, the art gallery, and stopped to have a crepe. The library was a lovely, modern building, wide open and spacious. Nice size for the island and tourist population. Another walk on Onetangi Beach, sat and enjoyed the sun and the waves, waded in the cold water. And watched a bunch of birds dive bombing into the water for fish. Quite a show! Filled up the gas in our funny little car, took two trips to get the tank full. Packed up to leave in the 10 am ferry.Read more