A long weekend in Auckland part 2; Waiheke Island

After a much more casual start to the day, (our ferry wasn’t until 11) and an absolutely brilliant nights sleep courtesy of the earplugs, we headed into the the city (with the correct change) and on to the ferry. If possible it was even hotter and more cloudless than yesterday, and standing in the queue for the boat in the sun whilst shaded from the wind was a slightly sweaty business. The ferry was filled with quite a lot of dressed up groups, clearly Waiheke Island on the weekend is a bit of a destination. Getting there we jumped onto the tour bus where we were greeted by an amazing tour guide. She was 76 and just rambled about everything under the sun while driving us along, she was slightly stressed to begin with and titled herself the ‘fun police’ who would be chivvying us between the three different vineyards we were due to visit. 

They were all beautiful, so I won’t say it for each one, but the first, Stony Ridge, is where we had a light lunch of quiche and salad with a taster of two whites and a rose, which Amelia actually really liked. I’m delighted about this as we can now have a glass of wine together at dinners. Chivvied onwards by our amazing guide (who we unfortunately didn’t get the name of) our next stop was at an olive oil refinery (don’t know if this is the correct term but seemed to fit). There we had some of the best oils on the planet (tasty) and met a large cockerel. Next up was Casita Miro where we had a white, couple of reds and a fortified wine of 18% (very sweet, much like sweet sherry). Again delightful, again with lovely views. Here we bought a glass each and sat on the verandah overlooking the vines, however the fun police struck again and we had to decant our glasses into coffee cups to take on the bus. Not ideal. 

The final vineyard, Mud Brick, was the best and is clearly a very smooth operation. They do over 160 weddings a year and are booked up for over 2 years and you can immediately see why. The views from there are stunning, the buildings delightfully tasteful and the wines pretty good too. We had an actual tour of the vines whilst tasting the wines which was informative, most of the group opting to keep to the shade of conifer trees for the duration rather than bask in the afternoon sun. This was our last stop on the tour so we headed back to the ferry terminal very warm and content. The ferry back contained many more drunk people than this morning, so the queue was pretty entertaining, and we were back in the city by 6. We had a drink and snacks overlooking the harbour, before dinner at a Mexican restaurant then, surprisingly shattered, we headed back to Ponsonby. 

You can’t usually get the wines made on Waiheke at normal retailers as they sell out their batches at the vineyards themselves, so it was a real treat to get to taste some of New Zealand’s finest wines. A definite recommendation, but we were very fortunately with the stunning weather.