Only a short ferry journey from Auckland (no sea sickness!!) we arrived on Waiheke Island. We hired a car and headed straight for the Stoneyridge Vineyard. We tried a few of their wines then sat in the shade of the vines on the terrace to have lunch. The food was fab, a grazing platter with Oysters, wagu beef, local olives and cheese and lots of other yummy stuff - a great start to the weekend.

From there we headed up to our accomodation - Cross Trees Chalet - WOW! It was a self contained apartment on stilts high on the hill over looking Rocky Bay. You can see from the photo's it's not quite a youth hostel but we thought we deserved a treat! The second best thing about the apartment was it was five mins walk to Te Whau Vineyard so that's were we spent our first afternoon, lying on the grass, enjoying the wine and the view. We did buy a bottle of their wine - $55 to have with our $5 pasta!

Our second day we went up to Stony Batter, a historical fort with some very creepy tunnels! We then drove round the coast to Man O War bay and down to Passage Rock Vineyard. The wine was lovely but the Pizza was the best we've had (even better than the Flying Pizza for those who know it) - Thanks for the recommendation Mr & Mrs F. We visited one more vineyard - Obsidian - which had some cracking wines - shame we can't ship some home! The evening was spent playing cards on the balcony.

On our final full day we had brekky in bed (waiting for the rain to clear) and then headed down to Whakanewha Regional Park and walked through the forest back down to the beach for a swim and a picnic. The rest of the day was spent driving round the parts of the island we hadn't seen (which only took an hour!) and then back to our apartment. We leave Waiheke to go back to Auckland then up to the Bay of Islands which will be the next instalement!