Joan's account of our visit to Waiheke Island

On Saturday, Jan 12th the three of us took the walk-on ferry (35 minutes) to Waiheke Island. Waiheke is full of “baches”, the New Zealand name for a summer cottage. Like Europeans, Kiwis love their ‘holidays’ and either spend it traveling or going to the family bach at the seashore. If your family doesn't own a bach, at least you can rent for a few weeks. Since we didn’t know anyone we could mooch on we spent the day driving around (Curt rented a car for the day), getting lost a couple of times (called ‘an adventure’) or just being mesmerized by the sound and scene of the waves.

First, we headed for the Saturday Market and just wandered around. Curt found a sausage sandwich and I had my first meat pie. We then aimed for an olive grove where we thought we might have a tour. Since we only ‘aimed’ for the olive orchard we took a wrong turn and ended up at a beautiful beach, Onetangi Harbor. It was about a mile long, white sand, no surfing waves, and beautiful aqua water. Eventually we found our way back to the olive farm where there wasn’t much of a tour until we started asking questions. They had lots of very expensive olive oil for sale and an excellent herb spread, similar to pesto but with no basil or garlic. In a back room where the vats were kept we discovered an incredible chess set carved out of olive wood (I guess), and a dog that looked like Roxie. The chess set was about 8’x8’ with great expressions carved on the pieces. After the Olive farm’ we went back to Onetangi beach where Megan and Curt took a walk along the sand while I sandbagged in the car. Waiheke Island has at least a dozen public beaches like this so it wasn’t crowded.

After an ice cream bar we headed for one of the many wineries and some wine tasting. Curt looked for appropriate place to sketch but nothing took his eye. While Megan and Curt strolled among the gardens, I talked with a couple from Denver who had recently moved to the South Island and were on holiday with her mother who was visiting from Boulder. Small world. We drove around some more through quaint villages, stopped at more beaches, (Curt took a nap on one) and caught the ferry home.

Waiheke Island is probably about 25 miles long and advertises itself as “1000 views and 100 beaches”. Only the west end is much developed, there is also a car ferry, and since it’s only 35 minutes from downtown Auckland, it’s not hard to live there and commute to work or school in the city. What a life!