Waiheke
Island

When visiting Auckland, Waiheke Island is always listed as a top place to visit — known for beaches and wineries. We had saved our trip to our one full day of forecast sunshine. For once, the forecast was accurate.

Waiheke Island

The recommended day trip is to take a 45-minute ferry from Auckland and rent bikes to ride to various wineries. We didn't check closely but decided to book a tour instead — the bike ride would have been pretty strenuous as the island is very hilly and to visit the best wineries it would have been a 30–40 mile ride, so the tour was the way to go. We used a company called "Waiheke Wine Tours" and the guide was good. We didn't buy any wines to take with us as we were already overloaded on luggage heading back to the USA.

The first place was Cable Bay Vineyards, overlooking a bay and Auckland in the distance with a great setting and decent wine — followed by lunch at another winery, Batch, at the highest point on the island. We had longer visits in the afternoon at two of the more established wineries, Stonyridge and Mudbrick, as well as a stop at Onetangi Beach.