So Scott and I were finally able to take a little mini-break this past weekend and finally go on the "Taste of Waiheke Tour" that his parents had given us for Christmas last year. We were blessed with absolutely fantastic, sunny, crisp weather for the entire weekend, yeehaw! Waiheke Island is a large island just off the coast of Auckland City and can be visited via a 35 minute ferry from downtown.
We stayed at a place called the Crescent Valley EcoLodge which was a sort of "green" bed and breakfast with organic food and much recycling. I apologize profusely because in a very uncharacteristic move, I did not take a single picture of our lodging. Huh. Anyways, it was kinda like a wood and corregated metal hostel with private bedrooms and shared common areas, bathrooms, kitchen, and deck. A big selling points for me were the fact that they had heat (in the form of infrared heaters mainly, but also a wing heater in our room that did a good job) and an outdoor hot tub! It was really neat to sit in the hot tub under the stars, if a bit chilly getting to and from it from the lodge. We really lucked out being the only guests because not only did we then get ungraded to the "family" suit, but we also did not have to worry about sharing with other guests (the place was pretty darn cozy).
Friday night we arrived around 7pm on the ferry and Sue (of Sue and Dave) from the lodge picked us up. After a rather harrowing carride, we arrived at the lodge and settled in to play some cards before being served a wonderful, organic, homemade meal. First was the appetizer of fresh bread, dips, and olives. Then Scott had rump steak and I had a wild venison burger. Unfortunately we were quite stuffed with yummy appetizers already and couldn't make much of a dent in our entrees. Then we took a dip in the spa and went off to bed looking forward to our tour on Saturday.
The tour consisted of three wineries and one olive orchard (although one of the wineries also had an olive orchard). First our tour guide, Horst, took us to Stonyridge Vineyard (CAUTION: link has music!) Here we enjoyed our first wine (I think a Pinot Gris) and had a light lunch of salad, bread, and quiche. Scott and I actually were allowed seconds of the white wine because everyone else also enjoyed a red (which I am allergic to). We may have actually purchased some wine if we weren't rushed off the property without even getting to visit the gift shop. Hmmmm. Oh well. This was also the winery with the olive orchard and actually provided the olives for the olive orchard that we visited next, and I told Scott that this was pretty much my dream orchard/vineyard and all that was missing was the apple orchard and cider mill.
The Rangihoua Estate was a bit less flash (as the kiwis say), but did have a really cool native wood bench made from wood 30,000 years old, not to mention delicious, delicious olive oil and olive oil spread (of course we bought some!). Many of the die-hard wine snobs in our group were terribly unimpressed with the subtle differences in the olive oils, but Scott and I thought they were all excellent. I wasn't sure what the die-hard wine snobs were doing on this tour anyway as there were other tours that did strictly wine. Anyways, apparently they hand-pick the trees with olive rakes and we are welcome to come and help them at harvest time.
Next was Wild on Waiheke/Top Knot Hill Vineyard/Waiheke Brewery (AGAIN CAUTION: link has weird sound effects). This place seemed to mainly specialize in group building semi-extreme activities such as archery and lazer skeet shooting, less on wine, and a bit on beer. Here we had to pay to sample the whites (a chardonney and a savignon blanc) because only a red, a pink, and some beer were included in the tour (but don't fret, it was only $6 total for both Scott and I to try each). The wines were good, but the beer was really just OK. It was kinda disappointing because both the hops and the wheat came from Germany and only the actual brewing was done on the island...but I'm starting to sound like a snob myself, so lets move on...
Top Knot Hill is named after a Maori chief who wore his long hair on the top of his head.
The last stop was Mudbrick Vineyard which was just beautiful!!!! Gorgeous grounds. Incredible views. We were sad to leave here, but went away with a bottle of Reisling from their Marlborough vineyard (Reisling grapes aren't grown on Waiheke). Scott also got to taste one of their reserve Syrahs which I guess was a special treat. I also thought it was really funny everytime they mentioned using American oak instead of French oak barrels, but I am amused with strange things.
After the tour, we got Horst to drop us off in the town of Oneroa and took a walk on the beach before scoping out a place for dinner. After walking up and down the main drag about 20ish times and dutifully checking the menu of every possible eatery, we finally decided on VinoVino... only to find that they wouldn't be open for dinner for another hour or so. Since our wine was now getting a bit heavy and it was getting a bit chilly out, we stopped off at a bar called the Sandbar and after a day of wine, had coca-cola while we waited. Scott had a hankiering for seafood, so he had the Salmon filet and I had the honey-glazed prawns (shrimp).
Heading back to the lodge, we waited a bit long for the bus and then got off about 1/2 mile from the lodge to walk in the dark along narrow roads with no shoulder. This would not have been too much of a problem except we were then assaulted by some...unkind...person in a car who sped up to us, then slammed on there breaks scaring us terribly and sending gravel, burning rubber, and smoke flying. I thought at first that they hadn't seen us and had almost hit us, but they turned around and came back for another round. Fortunately, Scott and I were just jarred but unharmed. But some people! Sheeesh!
On Sunday we decided that this hadn't really been one of "our" adventures yet, so we decided to do a little hiking and maybe some frisbee golf. We had purposefully packed "light" and only had backpacks (now with wine and olive oil bottles to weight them), so we got ready and briskly headed down to catch the bus to the sports park frisbee golf course. As we rounded the corner we watched in horror as the bus pulled away from the stop. Since Waiheke buses only come about once every hour, we had a decision to make. We would either wait an hour at the bus stop or hoof it about 4km to the sports park. We decided to walk it and stopped at a grocery store on the way for provisions (another bottle of water and 2 "One Square Meal" bars). We reached the entrance to the sports center that is home to the island's protected rooster colony and walked up the long drive to find the center mainly locked up with no frisbees available for the course. Sad. But undaunted we used the bathroom facilities and I shed a few layers of clothing and we headed towards a trail that we hoped would take us to Whakanewha Regional Park. Which it did...sort of...eventually.
Walking.
Apparently Waiheke used to be home to a lot of hippies living in houseboats.
"Hey! You're not supposed to be here Mr. Mouse..."
Endangered New Zealand dotteral breeding grounds.Long story, short (I know, too late) we hiked around for about 5 hours (20km) total, came out exhausted, sore (didn't bring our hiking boots), and HUNGRY only to have to wait another hour for a bus to an eatery. We chose one by the ferry terminal, but didn't spot it before the terminal, so we got off there and asked around. Unfortunately, that eatery had closed several years ago (stupid outdated tour book), so we jumped on the ferry leaving that moment and got some expensive sandwiches and cokes on the ferry. This slaked our hunger until we hit Auckland's shores where Scott now had a hankering for a burger. We then stomped around the wharf area for about 20 minutes until finally settling on the Waterfront restaurant which boasted a cheeseburger on the placard. By this point I nearly fell asleep in my pumpkin gnocchi.
Bus stop at Rocky Bay (a.k.a. middle of nowhere Waiheke).
All in all, a really terrific trip. It is a bit sad to be back in noisy spa-less Auckland, but I still have a week of break to enjoy...poor Scott...wait, I have 5 projects to finish still, poor me! ;)
:) Jen (& Scott)
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