Current location: Auckland, New Zealand
11.11am, At a vow-renewal ceremony! Onboard the ship this morning, Capt Stubing was hosting a ceremony for 14 couples, and it was beautiful! The ship was decorated really nicely, and all the couple were looking lovely, and very excited! The rain held off long enough to enjoy the ceremony, then when the heavens opened, Cat and I retreated inside, packed our stuff up and left the ship (after a sneaky early lunch!). Within minutes of arriving in Auckland, the sun was out, so we decided to make the most of it and head over to Waiheke Island, known for its wineries. The windy, sunny, 40-minute boat ride away was quite a change from our ship, and when we got to the island, we decided to hop on a bus straight to the Onetangi beach. Seriously, one of the most magnificent beaches I've seen, ever ever ever! And it was pretty much empty.
As we'd hopped off the bus, we'd half-heard a comment from the bus driver to someone else, saying the wineries closed at 4pm, so we went to check in a nearby cafe, and found out that was true. The nearest winery was a 40-minute walk away, and the next us didn't come until 4pm. And it was 3.20pm. Uh-oh.
We were desperate to go to a winery called Stonyridge, which we'd heard a lot about, but just couldn't figure out how to get there in time. We started walking, while we were thinking, and in the end, decided to hitchhike (sorry Mum!). Can I just say for the record, it's a small island and nice and safe, and there were two of us. I don't make a habit of hitching but this time it saved our bacon, as a guy our age picked us up, drove us right to the door of the winery and, two minutes later, we were sitting out on loungers with the beautiful vineyard in front of us, and eight tasting wines lined up next to us. It was boiling hot, so sunny and green and lush, and we were so happy!
We ended up staying for a couple of hours, as there were quite a lot of us there so they didn't want to kick us all out. Apparently Taylor Swift had been there a couple of weeks ago, which according to our very sweet Stuttgart waiter was 'f**king cool'. I loved this winery!
When the winery closed, we ran down to catch the bus and then got a boat back to Auckland as the sun was going down. It's just so gorgeous here! Chucking our stuff in our hostel room, we went downstairs to a really cute bar (fairy lights, exposed brick and cheap drinks), had a beer and went next door for yummy burgers from Velvet Burger (recommended by some Aucklanders we got chatting to in the bar). Ending our night at an amazing cake/ice-cream shop called Milse, we got back to our hostel and fell asleep, full, drunk, sunburnt, and loving NZ!
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