To insanity and beyond ...: I've tasted umpteen glasses of wine, several types of beer ...

Mudbrick Vineyard

I discovered a new alcoholic beverage today ... well, new for me that is. Rum and Ginger Beer ... it’s YUM! In fact, it’s MORE than yum .... and if the bus hadn’t been on such a tight schedule I’d have had MORE than one!

Leaving Auckland on the ferry

It’s definitely something I’ll be trying again!

There were 2 cruise ships in the Harbour. This was the biggest one.

It has been THE most fun day, despite the wet and woeful weather. WELLYTOWN kind of weather. It even threw in the wind when we were on Waiheke. Funny, all those ‘W’ words .... wet, windy, woeful Wellington and Waiheke .... though I don’t know if Wellytown was wet, woeful and windy today. Wouldn’t it have been strange if they had our sunshine and we had their wind!

Leaving Auckland in the distance

I have tasted umpteen glasses of wine, several types of beer and a variety of olive oils. I have needed to find many bathrooms and have cursed the bus driver more than once for his paranoid persistence in sticking to his schedule.

Coming through the heads to Waiheke Island reminds me of the Knysna Heads

I have been buffeted around by the waves. I have been rained on. I have been blown away by the wind BUT ...... I have had HEAPS of fun!! I especially want to thank the organisers of the Grey Lynn Park Festival for CANCELLING the festival. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t have discovered my new tipple!

I learnt all about Bordeaux type wines at Stony Ridge Winery, home to the famous Larose Wine, apparently one of the top ‘cult’ wines in the world. Sadly, because of the scarcity of this wine, we didn’t get to taste it but we did get to taste some of their other blends. Lunch here was also YUM and laid out in one of the Cellars for us .... very quaint!

.... and there's the Ginger Beer and the Rum!

Wild on Waiheke have their very own micro-brewery nestled in amongst the vines. If anyone’s responsible for my new found appreciation of rum and ginger-beer, it’s Wild on Waiheke. They never should have suggested trying their ginger beer with the addition of a tot of rum.

Some of the carved fence posts at the Olive Oil Grove ... they've turned them into a chess set.

I very nearly had to steal a glass from here as that ‘punctually paranoid’ bus-driver drew our visit there to an end far sooner than we wanted it to be. I was still salivating at the taste of the rum and ginger beer and wondering if I should have another. Olive Oil was up next .... also delicious ... but nowhere near as yum as the rum and ginger beer!

Our last port of call was the Mudbrick Vineyard. We’ve been here before and it’s setting is just spectacular. It has the most magnificent views of Rangitoto and the city in the far distance. We tasted several wines here but I think by this stage, I was past appreciating the finer points of them.

I wasn’t past appreciating the gardens though and, despite the rain, still managed to get some great pics .... albeit with raindrops on the lens!

The ride home on the ferry was much smoother than the ride to Waiheke ... I’m wondering if it really WAS much smoother or if the senses were just a tad DULLED ..... hmmmmm.