A little old, a little new
Trip Start
Dec 29, 2007
1
41
42
Trip End
Ongoing
Waiheke Island,
North Island,
New Zealand
Saturday, August 22, 2009
After our 40 min crossing to Kennedy Point we took a spin to Surfdale, the "downtown" area. It has the bare essentials & there is a Woolworths in the neighbouring suburb. Given our good fortune catching one of the few dry autumn days we cruised to the passenger ferry point at Half Moon Bay to start a coastal walk around the south west.
The views overlooking the port & bays were sensational as can be seen in the photos
in the ferry
. Our walk brought us through native bush overlooking pristine beaches, up rolling hills, past Church Bay, beyond Cable Bay vineyard & hugged the boundaries of multi million dollar properties. Some mansions contained more glass than concrete. Some had monuments in their back gardens. Most had a football pitch area. The signposts skedaddled long enough to encourage a few wrong turns so we ended up back in the town like Starvin' Marvin. Pretty much the only eatery open & serving was the award winning fish n' chips which were greasily good but drastically overpriced. We took a gander at some of the easternmost beaches but dusk fell a little sooner than hoped & 7pm marked the final sailing back.
Not doing anything in halves we recently ventured for a second helping. After a brief gallop across the CBD we just made the 10am sailing ($32 each). On this occasion with a troop we opted to rent some wheels on the other side & have more freedom on the island. With 7 of us we took the biggest they had, a Mitsubishi Chariot ($130 unlimited kms). With the majority of the island having a 50kph limit it was like Driving Miss Daisy.
Our first stop was Stony Ridge winery
vane salta
. The grounds were idyllic covered in olive trees, palm trees & grapevines. Unlike other countries sampling is not free. At $15 a taster for their best wine we nodded, smiled & departed fairly lively. The island roads wind & narrow continuously with few places to stop but at every opportunity there were photo stops so short drives invariably become prolonged. We stocked up on food beforehand & lunched at Rocky Bay while some Chinese tourists, industrious to the core, battered oysters off rocks. We turned off at a couple of other wineries en route but fortune did not favour us as we were met with closed gates. Moving on we took in the east coast passing Cowes Bay. Most bays are speckled with yachts/boats & many properties have their own jetties. I would have liked to stop at Stony Batter, the old World War 2 defence installment but the $8 entry swayed my compadres to push on.
We managed to return to the port just before sundown as the temperature dropped. Patience not being one of our strong points we skimmed stones rather than joining the ferry queue & typically when we eventually did, we were refused entry as it was deemed full. Only an hour wait, kudos Fullers!
