Day 317: Waiheke Day Trip — Man O’ War Vineyard — Chinese Takeout + Rainbow on Lobsy’s Last Night!!
This morning after breakfast we took the 10:40 am car ferry an hour to Waiheke Island, a small island known for beautiful vineyards and stunning natural scenery.
We read and colored on the ride over. Willa is re-reading the entire Harry Potter series, despite all kinds of great new book recommendations we’ve received. She’s finished re-reading book one and is onto book two now.
Our understanding is that Waiheke was a locals/hippy spot for decades until the moneyed set arrived and started building mansions, turning it more into a Hamptons of Auckland.
It was, indeed, gorgeous. And that was despite the fact that it was overcast and drizzling all day. I can’t even imagine how glorious it must be on a sunny day.
We drove on a small, unpaved road out to the easternmost part of the island to have lunch at Man O’ War vineyard, which we’d been told was family friendly and had good food. We needed a special spot to toast Lobsy on her last day!
The place delivered. We enjoyed a charcuterie plate and some pizza with sauvignon blanc.
Then we walked out to the beach and strolled for a bit. We found seaglass, drew in the sand, and chatted.
Before we left we tasted a few more of their wines, then headed back out to catch our 4 pm ferry home.
We noticed a lot of Americans there. In fact, we’ve seen more Americans here than anywhere we’ve been so far (besides Europe). Lots of honeymooners. Assume Queenstown will be swarming with them.
Back at our hotel around 5:30, Lobsy spotted a massive rainbow out our window! What a sign on her last day on her last big adventure of 2019! We tried to capture it, but of course a little phone didn’t do it justice.
We got cozy and ordered Chinese food. It’s been a running joke that we never ate Peking duck in Beijing because Teddy and I got so ill there. Lobsy was robbed of her chance. To make up for it, we ordered some!!
Teddy found some corny family movie on TV called A Dog’s Way Home, which of course the kids loved and made us all cry. I love that we’ve watched about 2 movies all year and this crap was one of them.
We will miss Lobsy when she leaves — but the upside is that her departure means the end of two weeks’ complete and total food indulgence. We’ve been eating verrrrry well on this leg of the journey, and we’re all feeling it. Time to rein it in!!
