Waiheke Island and The Fiddler
After the first week of CVNZ, Sonia and I were thick as thieves. She was planning to see as much as possible while she was in New Zealand, so that meant packing her weekends full of activities. When she mentioned going to Waiheke Island on Saturday, I jumped at the chance to join her!
We paid $42 each for our Waiheke trip. It included the return ferry ride, a bus tour and all day bus rides on the local transit. It seemed like a good deal at the time. Little did we know that there is NOTHING to do on Waiheke, especially when it is cloudy, except spend money. We were going to go to have a "snack" at a pub at Onetangi beach but discovered that a "snack" would cost us like $20 each! yuck. So we made our own fun on the beach instead:
It was a beautiful island though and the tour guide was kind of funny. He kept telling us about how much money people spent on houses and the like. One guy just sold his peninsula for $12 million:
The closer peninsula is an old Maori Pa site. It's the one in the background that sold... Speaking of which I've been meaning to sell MY peninsula... I should get on that... ha.
Despite the lack of activity, which I suppose was mostly due to the weather, we did manage to appreciate Waiheke's never ending views:
Nude Beach:
Not Nude Beach, aka Palm Beach:
It is generally known, when two beaches are side by side... the left one is the nude one.
"Turtle Islands":
We tried to go to a market, but it ended up being closed just before we got there. We have such great timing really. But that's ok, because I walked to a shop nearby and bought a disc (aka frisbee)... which I still haven't used. We went into a different little town centre and bought ourselves lunch. Sandwiches and Sonia had a Chocolate milkshake:
They had pictures of this store on t-shirts so I took a picture of it because it must be important:
Then we headed back to the ferry. We are glad we went to Waiheke, but we are doubly glad that we went with each other because we were what made it interesting for us to go... not to make you think Sonia and I are full of ego. Even if we are awesome, and... oh... right, back to blog. We caught the five o'clock ferry, checked out the infamous sculpture on the hill that I thought looked like enormous pieces of discarded duct tape, and headed home:
We lasted about 30 seconds on the rooftop of the ferry before we ran for cover. We almost got blown off the boat while trying to make it down the stairs. It probably didn't help that we were laughing so hard! haha!
After we got back to Auckland we decided to hit the town:
The Fiddler:
Me, Mike, Rich and Sonia
Now, when Mike came by the pub, Sonia and I were sitting in the window, he waltzed in with his backpack and all. He got a beer, ditched his bag and though he had the choice of the entirely empty bar, he asked to sit at the last window seat next to us. I suppose it's what any bright guy would do really, but I still think he's great for it.
They had currency from around the globe stuck to all the walls and ceilings around the bar. Though they had real Canadian elsewhere, I was most amused to discover Canadian Tire money!!
We met guys who worked for Cirque Du Soleil, setting up the rigging and all the technical end of things. Some were cool, most were kind of greasy or egotistical. Guilliam was cool, he is from Quebec and was the one who pointed out the Canadian Tire money to me! hehe :
Greasy ones:
Mike was a young lawyer from California who had just been practicing in New York and was on his way to Australia. Rich was his friend that came to pick him up. They hadn't seen each other in 6 years, and we got party with them a little bit for their reunion. They were our favourite people in the place.
I'm so glad I met Sonia, she really made that day the awesome that it was.
We paid $42 each for our Waiheke trip. It included the return ferry ride, a bus tour and all day bus rides on the local transit. It seemed like a good deal at the time. Little did we know that there is NOTHING to do on Waiheke, especially when it is cloudy, except spend money. We were going to go to have a "snack" at a pub at Onetangi beach but discovered that a "snack" would cost us like $20 each! yuck. So we made our own fun on the beach instead:
It was a beautiful island though and the tour guide was kind of funny. He kept telling us about how much money people spent on houses and the like. One guy just sold his peninsula for $12 million:
The closer peninsula is an old Maori Pa site. It's the one in the background that sold... Speaking of which I've been meaning to sell MY peninsula... I should get on that... ha.
Despite the lack of activity, which I suppose was mostly due to the weather, we did manage to appreciate Waiheke's never ending views:
Not Nude Beach, aka Palm Beach:
It is generally known, when two beaches are side by side... the left one is the nude one.
"Turtle Islands":
We tried to go to a market, but it ended up being closed just before we got there. We have such great timing really. But that's ok, because I walked to a shop nearby and bought a disc (aka frisbee)... which I still haven't used. We went into a different little town centre and bought ourselves lunch. Sandwiches and Sonia had a Chocolate milkshake:
They had pictures of this store on t-shirts so I took a picture of it because it must be important:
Then we headed back to the ferry. We are glad we went to Waiheke, but we are doubly glad that we went with each other because we were what made it interesting for us to go... not to make you think Sonia and I are full of ego. Even if we are awesome, and... oh... right, back to blog. We caught the five o'clock ferry, checked out the infamous sculpture on the hill that I thought looked like enormous pieces of discarded duct tape, and headed home:
We lasted about 30 seconds on the rooftop of the ferry before we ran for cover. We almost got blown off the boat while trying to make it down the stairs. It probably didn't help that we were laughing so hard! haha!
After we got back to Auckland we decided to hit the town:
Me, Mike, Rich and Sonia
Now, when Mike came by the pub, Sonia and I were sitting in the window, he waltzed in with his backpack and all. He got a beer, ditched his bag and though he had the choice of the entirely empty bar, he asked to sit at the last window seat next to us. I suppose it's what any bright guy would do really, but I still think he's great for it.
They had currency from around the globe stuck to all the walls and ceilings around the bar. Though they had real Canadian elsewhere, I was most amused to discover Canadian Tire money!!
We met guys who worked for Cirque Du Soleil, setting up the rigging and all the technical end of things. Some were cool, most were kind of greasy or egotistical. Guilliam was cool, he is from Quebec and was the one who pointed out the Canadian Tire money to me! hehe :
Greasy ones:
Mike was a young lawyer from California who had just been practicing in New York and was on his way to Australia. Rich was his friend that came to pick him up. They hadn't seen each other in 6 years, and we got party with them a little bit for their reunion. They were our favourite people in the place.
I'm so glad I met Sonia, she really made that day the awesome that it was.
so said Crys at 10:28 AM
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