Wonderful Waiheke

It’s been one week today since Andy and I returned from our trip to Auckland and Waiheke Island, and I’m already dying to go back. Waiheke is a large island in the Hauraki Gulf off Auckland, and it takes about 30 minutes to reach by ferry. A lot of people go for the day to visit all the wineries, but we decided to give ourselves plenty of time to leisurely explore and booked three nights on the island.

We headed to the airport early on a Thursday morning and made the quick hour-long flight from Wellington to Auckland. As soon as we got in, we hopped on the bus into the city and grabbed lunch. Then we made our way to the ferry port and departed for Waiheke. So long, Auckland!

We got great views of the islands surrounding Auckland, many of which are volcanic. Some of them are designated as wildlife sanctuaries, so they’ve been freed of all invasive species.

As soon as we pulled into Waiheke, I was in love. It was rated the fifth best destination in the world to visit in 2016 by Lonely Planet and the fourth best island in the world by Condé Nast. It didn’t take long to see why.

We caught a bus and made the short walk up the road to our little bach.

Our place was off the beaten path and away from town, but still close enough to walk everywhere we needed to go.

We dropped off our stuff and immediately made for the beach. Even the path to the beach was gorgeous.

Although this particular beach was a bit rocky, I didn’t mind one bit because I found sea glass and some great shells.

Andy and I decided to explore further up the coast.

Our progress was soon halted after Andy did some scouting and found that we couldn’t go any further.

Oh well, back to the beginning. We soon discovered a path that took us to the next beach over.

The views from the trail were incredible.

This beach was even better than the last.

Since it was a Thursday, no one else was in sight. As if being in paradise wasn’t already enough, having it to ourselves was truly the icing on the cake.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

We wandered a bit further up to the road and came upon another beach called Enclosure Bay. This one, as the name suggests, was very sheltered by some barrier islands and rocks off the coast.

I followed Andy’s lead and decided to wade into the water. It was chilly, but not too bad for this time of year.

This beach was my favorite of the three, but I’d take any of them any day.

After cooling off, we made our way back towards our bach via a steep hillside path. The view from the top was great, even if we were a bit winded. You can see how lush and tropical the whole island is.

We relaxed for a bit before heading into Oneroa for dinner. The evening deserves a post all of its own due to the mind-blowing sunset, so that’ll have to wait until next time. Stay tuned!