Waiheke Island is located just off the coast of Auckland, NZ. It’s a 1 hour ferry ride from Auckland to the island. We stayed at a beautiful home on Rocky bay for 10 days and loved it! Here is a handful of things we did on Waiheke Island:

• Kayaking: the house we stayed at offered kayaks, and we took advantage of it!!! We did a couple of trips with the kayaks around rocky Bay Area, it was hard but fun!! The water was very clear and blue. On windy days, you could normally see many sailboats near Auckland.

• Hiking: since there are so many beautiful hikes in the area, we did a couple. We did the WWII historic walk at the Stony Batter Historic Reserve. Unfortunately the tunnels are closed but it was interesting to see all the buildings and tunnel entrances. The views in this area are breathtaking and we went to a nearby winery (Man o’ war vineyards) where my parents did some wine tasting and we played in the nearby beach. We also took the Matiatia hike that had huts of WWII also but it was SUPER beautiful and part of the hike was right by the ocean. It had many big huge mansions with a beautiful view of the ocean.

• Movie: There was a community movie theater that was located in the town of Ostend and they were showing the new star wars: The Rise Of Skywalker and we had been wanting to watch it for a while so we bought tickets and watched it. We watched it at the Waiheke Island Community Cinema. What was unique about this experience, was that instead of regular movie theater seats, there were a ton of different types, colors and styles of couches!! You could pick what couch you wanted to sit on and then you would normally have it all to yourself.

• Beaches: There are some nice beaches in the area so we explored! Normally the beach water was cold but you would soon get used to the water. The beach water was really clear so you could normally find very pretty shells and rocks. There were also tiny little jellyfish that were clear so you could see the organs inside of them. They are not poisonous so if you touch them, it would not hurt. The older they were, the more little ‘tentacles’ they had and the bigger they were. The beaches are beautiful, white sand, the water was calm and they were not busy at all!

• Wineries: Waiheke Island is known for there good wines. We went to a couple of wineries and for Mommy and Daddy, it was AMAZING!! Sometimes though, the winery’s would have some fun games like bean-bag-toss or connect four or some other fun outdoor games so that we would be entertained. Also on some of the hikes that we did, we could see a ton of grape vines and they were for wines! There were so many of them throughout the island. My parents favorite wineries were: Man o’ war and Alibi brewery company (which also offers wines)!

• The sunsets on Waiheke Island are SUPER BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!! The sky would normally be a mixture of pink, orange, and purple. It would be so cool to see the green spark of the sun before it disappears… We would normally see the beautiful sunset right before we go to bed, around 8:00 - 8:30 PM.

We had an AMAZING time in Waiheke Island with all the amazing beautiful forests and beaches!! I would definitely recommend it to anybody looking for a place to go to!!