Monday, February 17, 2025 – woke up to a light rain. Went downstairs to have breakfast and left on our 10-minute walk downhill to catch the ferry to Waiheke Island. Along with a relatively small horde of other passengers, we shuffled onto the ferry and settled into our unassigned seats.
The ferry ride was smooth in spite of the windy and wet conditions. We arrived on Waiheke Island and boarded the Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) bus. Fern had the brilliant idea to ride to the end of the route, then decide what we things we wanted to do… pretty easy since the island is fairly small, 36 square miles with no freeways, only 2–lane roads. I don’t think there’s a single traffic light. About 9500 fortunate people reside in a handful of quaint villages and scattered throughout the countryside. It’s hilly and green. The beaches are beautiful, and I’m sure crowded on sunny days. Grapes love growing on the island, with about 30 wineries. Harvest is coming up quickly, and clusters of grapes were visible from the bus, just hanging on the vines waiting to be picked, squished and made into beautiful wine.
After completing the full circuit, we decided to visit Oneroa, the largest of the island’s villages (population 1344). We went into a few shops and wandered around, then reboarded the HOHO bus went to a winery to have some lunch. After we got dropped off, we hoofed it up a long driveway, so lunch was extra good with nice views of the hills. After we finished, we walked down that big hill to catch the bus back to the ferry for our return to Auckland.
The sun had come out while we were at lunch so the ferry ride back to Auckland was great. We disembarked at the ferry building and walked back up the hill to our hotel.
We dropped our backpacks, etc., at the hotel and walked to dinner. The evening ended with doing a couple of errands before we turned in for the night.
Travels with Nance 