An Island of Wine and Sailboats Galore: Day 1 in Auckland

Josh and I flew from Christchurch to Auckland on Thursday night. The flight is about an hour and a half, give or take a few minutes. Josh's brother Matt lives there with his family, so we were able to stay with them for our 3 nights in town.

As you might have read in my post How Many Sheep Does it Take to Raise a Kiwi?, Auckland is New Zealand's largest city, with more than 1.5 million people.



The Auckland Skyline from the ferry
Photo by Erin Grigson

 The city is also unique in that Auckland is one of the few cities in the world to have a harbour on 2 different major bodies of water. The Manukau Harbour connects to the Tasman Sea and the Waitemata Harbour opens up to the Pacific Ocean. That being said, it makes for a special walk "across the country." Adventurers can make the trek from Viaduct Harbour on the east coast to Manukau Harbour on the west side of Auckland in roughly 5 hours. (We did not do the cross-country hike, but we saw lots of the sights that people enjoy on that walk in our travels.)

The city is also surrounded by multiple dormant volcanoes, but we'll get to more about that later.

My favorite thing Auckland is known for? Sailboats. Auckland is known as the "City of Sails," which I will also get into a bit more later.

Our sightseeing started on Friday morning.

Rangitoto Island, a scenic reserve in the Hauraki Gulf, from the ferry
Photo by Erin Grigson

1. Waiheke Island

We caught the bus to downtown. (Transportation in and around Auckland is really amazing and not very expensive!) We took the ferry over to Waiheke Island. The ferry runs about every hour on the hour and costs $19 there and then $19 back. (You can use the bus card to pay for this as well as your transportation on buses in Auckland and on Waiheke, so it's a really great option.)

Waiheke Island is the most populated and second largest island in the Hauraki Gulf in the Auckland Region. Around 10,000 people live on the island and another roughly 3,500 have batches (holiday homes) there.

More importantly, Waiheke is known as the "Island of Wine." I forgot to count the exact number of vineyards, but there were at least 10 (maybe 15) vineyards on the island. Waiheke vineyards regularly win awards, but the wines are pretty expensive because of the small size of the vineyards. There were multiple varieties of wines made there, from Bordeaux, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, and, of course, Sauvignon Blanc.



Our view for lunch of Oneroa Beach (or pretty close to it)
Photo by Erin Grigson

1. A: Oneroa

Me and my delicious Mandarin Thai Basil
gelato from Island Gelato Company.
So. Good.

Our first stop was Oneroa Beach for some lunch. I recommend the Oneroa Beach Club. They had lots of good lunch options and a great selection of local wine.

They also had a pretty nice view of Oneroa Beach.

1. B: Island Gelato Company

I had the Island Gelato Company on my list of places to go, but I was surprised to find it was open on the island. In my research, I had read that it was only open on the island seasonally and since it's only just Spring, I figured we'd have to go to the location in the ferry building back in Auckland.

Luckily, the location in Oneroa Village was open and I got to taste some deliciously unique gelato.

They had some wild flavors, including Salted Passionfruit Coconut, Burnt Caramel Coconut, and Mandarin Chocolate Coconut among others. I tried two flavors, Blueberry, Sake & Lime and Mandarin Thai Basil. I went with the Mandarin Thai Basil. It was unique with the fresh taste of the basil mixed with the sweet/citrusy mandarin. So good.

Onetangi Beach on Waiheke Island
Photo by Erin Grigson

1. C: Onetangi Beach

Onetangi Beach
Photo by Erin Grigson

I took my gelato on the bus with us (which I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do until we were on the bus, but the driver didn't say anything) when we headed to Onetangi Beach.

Onetangi is basically on the opposite said of Waiheke from the ferry building. The bus ride took about 45 minutes, but was definitely worth it.

In my research, I'd seen photos of this beach with beautiful flowers and it did not disappoint. The beach was basically deserted on the Friday afternoon.

From there, I had really wanted to go to Man O'War Vineyards. I felt like, as a Kentuckian, I really needed to go. However, it would have taken us at least 2 hours just to walk there, let alone the 2 hours back, so we opted out of that one. However, our next stop easily made up for that.



Photo by Erin Grigson

1. D: Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant

Sipping a 2018 Mudbrick Pinot Gris from Waiheke while looking at the Auckland Skyline
Photo by Erin Grigson



Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant
Photos by Erin Grigson

When we came back from Onetangi, we got off the bus at Oneroa again and took off on our hike to Mudbrick.

While Josh had decided weeks ago that we were going to go to Waiheke, he hadn't said anything about what we were doing once we got there. So, like in Nelson, I prepared a list of places I wanted to go. On that list was Mudbrick Vineyard and Restaurant.

What I didn't know when I had decided that was that Matt, Josh's brother, had gotten married at Mudbrick almost 5 years ago.

The hike was roughly 2 kilometres UPHILL THE WHOLE WAY, but the view from there was absolutely breathtaking.

We went into the bistro there and each grabbed a glass of wine. I chose for us both a 2018 Pinot Gris grown on Waiheke. For $17 NZD a glass, it was pretty delicious (it wasn't a moscato, but still good).

While enjoying our wine and the amazing view, we realized that there was a wedding about to happen up on the hill (the same place Matt had gotten married). We didn't see the wedding, but it was a perfect day for it and I can't imagine many places in the world that could be any more beautiful to get married.

Luckily since the hike on the way there was uphill the whole way, we had a 4 kilometre hike downhill (we decided to head straight the ferry instead of waiting for the bus, which added 2 ks). We caught the 5 o'clock ferry back to Auckland.

The "City of Sails"
Photo by Erin Grigson

I loved the ferry. It made for some incredible opportunities to shoot the islands we rode by and of course the Auckland Skyline, which I fell in love with. Out of the 600 or so photos I took, I'm betting at least 300 of them are of the skyline. Breathtaking.

2-3. Viaduct Harbour and Wynyard Quarter

Harbour Bridge surrounded by sail boats in the "City of Sails"
Photo by Erin Grigson

Blue lights of Viaduct Harbour, Sky Tower lit up in pink
(More to come on the Sky Tower in Day 3 post)
Photo by Erin Grigson

In my research, I saw multiple people say how much they loved Viaduct Harbour, so that was our next stop.

As I said, Auckland is known as the "City of Sails." Our pilot on the way to Auckland even introduced it as such as we were landing: Welcome to the City of Sails.

When walking along the Viaduct to Wynyard Quarter, it's obvious how it got that name.

There are so. many. sailboats.

And while they aren't quite an impressive with their sails down, they still make the atmosphere really amazing. Sails are so ingrained in the area that they are incorporated in the designs of non-vessels. For instance, there's a draw bridge that cyclists and pedestrians can use to get across the Viaduct to Wynyard Quarter and it's shaped like a sailboat. In fact, I thought it was a sailboat until we were on top of it.

We walked from the ferry building all the way to the end of Silo Park in the Wynyard Quarter to have a beautiful view of the Harbour Bridge before we turned around and went all the way back.

We finished our night with a walk up Queen Street to grab some dinner. (Pita Pit is quickly becoming my favorite fast food restaurant in NZ.) After that, we grabbed the bus (the wrong one, but it's all good) and finally got back to the house.

Viaduct Harbour against Auckland Skyline
Photo by Erin Grigson

Total steps in Day 1: 24,408. Not bad at all.

Stay tuned for our Day 2 adventures in Auckland!