Waiheke Island - Mudbrick and The Shed Vineyard and Restaurants

Fab weekend which started off on Friday evening with dinner round at our friend's pad in Auckland… Roast lamb à la Ant style, yum. Great food, good company and a lovely evening. Our little man got to do some bonding with Bentley their gorgeous Labrador and we even got to see Bentley’s report from Doggy Daycare… pure genius for the person who thought up this one!

Now Doggy Day Care is serious stuff where we learnt that some owners become distraught if their pooches are awarded a grade C or lower.

Saturday and another promise of glorious mid winter blue skies and sunshine combined with the kind offer for the use of a bach (holiday home) over this weekend, beckoned another revisit to Waiheke Island. Our last visit a couple of weeks ago was a rather short and sweet affair and we really didn’t feel we did it justice, so back we headed for a little more vineyard sampling.

Have to say Waiheke Island is a  beautiful little gem, and so close to Auckland too. First port of call after our quick 30 minute ferry journey was Mud Brick Vineyard… we’d tried to go here last time round but unfortunately it was closed for a wedding.

All I can say is wow, I totally fell in love with the place. It’s what I would describe as my little slice of heaven, stunningly kept with meticulously manicured gardens, crammed full of sculptured hedges, lavender bushes and herb beds dotted around. There was a beautiful indoor restaurant, but we opted to sit out on the lounge chairs enjoying the sunshine, stunning views of Rangitoto Volcano and Auckland Skyline in the distance while sipping our chilled vino - just perfect. Dan and I ordered a platter to share and the food was spot on too, a mixture of cold meats, olives, squid, bread and dips and salad, yum and yum again.

We also were joined by a super tame sparrow who flew by for a visit much to the delight to the boys.

I could have quite happily sat there all afternoon, but we decided to press on and see more of the island. Now for some reason I had illusions that Waiheke was a smallish island, similar to others we’ve visited such as Rangitoto or Tiritiri, walkable, with a ring road that looped around the island, but no… how wrong was I? Waiheke is massive and you really need a set of four wheels to get around and do the place justice! 

We wanted to go visit the Stony Batter Historic Reserve but unfortunately by the time we found it they were closing the gates, so we headed back to our batch on Palm Beach in time for a quick walk on the beach and a sit down to catch the stunning sunset.

On Sunday we had a calling for banana and chocolate milkshakes all round so headed into town to Wai Kitchen for breakfast, and then down to the sandy beach of Onetangi. Dotted around were lots of blobs of beached jelly fish, and there commenced the boys conservation project of rescuing the jelly fish and transferring them to deeper waters…. amazing how initially there were the one or two, but on closer inspection there were hundreds of the darn things… but hey ho it kept the boys entertained.

Then it was onto The Shed at Te Motu Vineyard to meet up with Helen and her family who coincidently were on Waiheke having a squiz of some real-estate prospects Waiheke had to offer. 

The Shed in Te Motu is yet another beautiful vineyard - very child friendly and relaxed atmosphere - perfect to catch up with friends and enjoy the wine it has to offer - such a lovely way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Helen and Ant had brought along their labrador Bentley, so a certain little man was one happy little bunny.

Inseparable