Autumn on Waiheke Island

Autumn arrived at the same time we did, lucky we were expecting it and brought the right clothes A tail wind blew us from Melbourne to Auckland so the flight only took three hours - barely time to get settled.
Auckland was full of hardy Kiwis in shorts and thongs and tourists huddling into jackets against a sharpish wind blowing off the harbour but it had dropped by the time we headed out to dinner on the pier. 3 stars only.

Ferries to Waiheke Island run every hour on the hour so it was easy to walk out of our hotel with our cases onto the ferry for the short trip to the island where a bus was waiting. Buses are frequent and cheap but it didn't take us long to decide we had to have a hire car so back we went to the ferry terminal to get one.

The house I rented off the Internet was rather euphemistically described: a "5 minute nature walk" down to the front door which is actually for mountain goats and I dread going back up it with my suitcase. The shower is under the house which means out the back door in your nightie in the rain but fortunately there are no close neighbours. The other houses are scattered around the mountainside with precipitous hair-raising drives if you're lucky or a grassy glassy footpath like this one. Well we wanted quiet!!

We drove (love that car!) to our nearest village of Oneroa for basic supplies at the Four Square and came back for a quiet night with our books: TV is three channels of commercial rubbish and the AVIs I brought on a stick won't play on the TV set. There is an iPod dock so we can play our music.

The hire car guy told us there are 8000 permanent inhabitants, 4000 weekenders and in January 20000 visitors! I'd sooner be here in March even if it is raining.

We spent this morning exploring the tiny villages around Oneroa and taking time to decide on a winery for lunch. There are 31 vineyards and half of them have restaurants - we can't try them all, sadly. Stonyridge was a good choice: you sit on a verandah overlooking a valley of vines and horses and eat delicious food. Winery lunch will be our main meal and I award this one 4 stars. Food is expensive here - I suppose it's a long way from the mainland but it was surprising to be told we have to tip. The menu offered duct tape for hyperactive children so I reckon they earned a tip. Nowhere is very far away here with an island 23 kms long.

The rain lifted but we still have a grey sky so my photos won't look like a tourist brochure. We came back to our cottage and undertook the walk to "our" beach Herekoa Bay for which you need to be a mountain goat with cleats. It's a dear little rocky beach lined with dinghies and oysters on the rocks - which we will leave there, David having suffered twice in the past from dodgy oysters.