Waiheke Island, New Zealand {aka Paradise}

Waiheke Island, New Zealand ~ March 19-23, 2013

I set off to New Zealand to meet up with my cousin, Lee Anne, and a few other girls that we went to high school with in Phoenix to attend the wedding of another high school classmate and, of course, to explore New Zealand.  Honestly, I didn't have a real clear idea of what to expect of New Zealand.  David and I are pretty OCD travelers, and when we travel together, there's almost always a day-by-day itinerary, tickets/reservations for all attractions and restaurants in advance, maps/routes planned out, etc.  I get really into it usually, and I love trolling around on Trip Advisor and pouring through my Australia travel book.  This trip was a little different.  Obviously, there were more people involved (6 in total), and the whole thing was just much more laid back and relaxed.  Plus, I'd been super busy with work in the couple months leading up to the trip, which hadn't left me much time to obsess over travel books or Trip Advisor.  I was actually kind of looking forward to a different travel style.  So I guess it's safe to say that I really didn't have all that many expectations of what to expect in NZ.  However, I think it is safe to say, that any expectations that I did or could have had were absolutely blown away and exceeded.  New Zealand. Is. Incredible.  I loved it.  Loved everything about it.  I can go on and on (and I will), but for now, I'll start with just Waiheke Island. 

Waiheke Island is a small island just off the coast of New Zealand.  It's about a 40 minute ferry ride from Auckland.  It didn't take long for all of us to fall in love with it.  And I kid you not, by the second day there, we were (only half-jokingly) talking about wanting to buy a place there.  Just another day or two later, the six of us were actually getting somewhat serious about it and even picked up some real estate magazines.  One can dream, right?  Retirement, maybe?  :-)  But really, Waiheke Island is just that incredible.  It ranks right up there in my top 3 favorite and most beautiful beaches that I've ever been.  Here, have a look for yourself...

The cute little beach town of Oneroa

Free wine tasting? Yes, please!

Someday I will have a beach house with a porch like this... sigh...

One of the girls there for the wedding was training to be a yoga instructor, so she offered to give us a yoga class with an amazing view!

 

House shopping/dreaming

Dreamy, isn't it?

Our first day there, we got settled into where we were staying and enjoyed the views with some wine and cheese. 

Cheese, wine, and llamas!

Later that evening was the Groom's dinner.  The groom is actually from Scotland, so it was fun to see all the little Scottish touches that the groom's family added to the night.  It was a beautiful night! 

The view for dinner

They brought in a wood fire pizza food stand for dinner!



Scottish details - Scottish soaps "for the lassies," Auld Scots Words, kilts!

Scottish Band, and crazy blurry Scottish dancing

There was even a flash mob (skip forward to minute 2:30 or so- there was some issues with the music at first)!  All of the guests had been sent an instructional video a few weeks prior, and it was pretty impressive how well everyone knew the moves! 

The next day, we visited a place called Wild On Waiheke.  It's a winery and brewery where you can also do archery and laser clay bird shooting.  Genius!!  Someone open something in the US like this.  Oh, and they have tons of giant bean bags to sit on and drink your wine in- perfection.

The following day was the wedding.  There's not really much else to say about the wedding, except for the fact that it was by far the most gorgeous wedding I have ever (and probably will ever) attend.  The ceremony was at a place called Lavender Hill on the edge of a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Stunning.  The reception was at a vineyard called Mudbrick.  Seriously, insanely beautiful and there were so many very thoughtful details throughout the entire day.  Wow is all I can say. 

View from the ceremony - And lavender everywhere!

Amazing cocktails post-ceremony.  And this cute pup belonged to the owner of this place- he looked down on everyone the entire ceremony. 

I can claim Phoenix, Houston, and Brisbane :-)

View from the reception

The start of a gorgeous sunset

I mean seriously with this sunset?!

 

Our last full day on Waiheke Island was spent on a winery tour- we visited The Obsidian Winery, Peacock Sky Vineyard, and Kennedy Point Vineyard .  We had an awesome tour guide, Christine, who seriously was full of interesting information and fun factoids about the island.  My favorite being (well 2 favorites): 1.) Waiheke Island does not have any native mammals or birds  and 2.) New Zealand's only native land mammal is a bat AND there are no snakes, spiders, or any predatory animals for that matter.  WHAT?!?!?!  Living in Australia for the past 8 months where just about every creature has the potential to kill or at least injure you (OK maybe I'm exaggerating), this was a huge deal to me!  Another interesting thing about the wine tour is that two of the wineries we visited were owned by Americans who had visited Waiheke on vacation, fell in love, bought property, and never returned.  See?!  We weren't the only ones who wanted to stay!

Wine and grape tasting

 

This winery was completely organic.  These two cows are living the life there- their job is to clear the fields, eat the old vines, and provide "fertilizer"

This winery also made honey.  These trees (and the bees of course) are the source of the delicious Manuka honey- which is also used in many New Zealand beauty products.

Phew! Congrats if you made it this far.  As you can tell, I had a really hard time narrowing down the photos to include.  Missing Waiheke already... time to plan a trip back- this time with the husband!

Sydney Recap - iPhone Style

Still working on getting all my "real camera" photos together from our trip.  So in the meantime, here are some of my iPhone photos from our long weekend in Sydney.  Enjoy!

Our first view of the Opera House as we walked to our hotel.

 

 

There's an awesome outside bar/beer garden right near the Opera House. Amazing place for drinks with a very iconic view!

 

Met up with an old friend from Gonzaga who now lives in Sydney!

Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk

Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk

 

So many ill-placed speedos. Eek! Speedos are a poor decision 99% of the time if you ask me.

Drinks at our hotel

 

Beer tasting at Manly Beach

Again, obsessed with the panorama shots

 

Crazy how small this giant cruise ship makes the opera house look

 

New Zealand - iPhone Style

It always seems to take me much longer than I anticipate to go through photos from a trip, upload them to my computer, do the very few minor editing tricks that I know how to do, and then narrow down which ones to include in a blog post.  My goal is to get photos and blog posts up by the end of this week (fingers crossed!).  But, in the mean time, I thought I'd do a little recap preview with iPhone photos, since that's a much simpler process.  If you follow me on Instagram (which you should!), you've probably seen some of these photos already.  So without further ado, I present to you- New Zealand via iPhone photos!

Randomly found this advertisement our first day in NZ. Since there were 5 of us Phoenix, AZ natives traveling together, it fit perfectly!

 

Waiheke Island Photos:

We happened to ride over on the ferry with these flowers that were for the wedding we were attending.

Oneroa Beach

View from the wedding reception.

Waiheke Winery Tour

 

Queenstown Photos:

 

Approaching Queenstown

Sunrise

Gondola up the mountain, luge down!

View from the top of the gondola (I was really into the panorama shots apparently)

 

The famous Fergburger!

Yummy NZ Beer and a play on their favorite phrase "Sweet As"

Bungy Prep- eek!

This was the awesome bus we took to Milford Sound

Our Belgian friend that we met on the Milford overnight cruise

"Sweet As" - a common NZ (and Australian) phrase

A Belated Birthday Recap

I'm back! I have returned from my amazing New Zealand and Sydney travels, and am just now starting to sort through the hundreds of photos I have.  In the meantime I thought I'd do a quick birthday weekend recap, since my birthday was just a few days before I left and I didn't get a chance to recap. 

My birthday was Friday, March 15.  I was scheduled to work that day, which was fine by me since otherwise I would have mostly spent the day at home alone.  Each Friday, the school has a mini assembly (they call them "parades" here) first thing in the morning.  Each class takes turn being in charge of the parade, showing classroom projects, etc., and then at the end of each parade, they celebrate any birthday for the week.  Lucky for me, no one knew it was my birthday that day.  Or so I thought.  After they called up the few students/teachers that had birthdays that week, I thought I was safe... until a few of the students started shouting, "It's Miss Megan's birthday, too!!"  I had completely forgotten but a couple months earlier, one of the kiddos (with an amazing memory apparently) had asked me when my birthday was, and REMEMBERED all that time later.  I usually hate being sung to in front of a crowd, but it was actually kind of fun.  They sing the same happy birthday song as we do, but since the school I've been working at is a school for students with special needs, they also sign the song which was really neat.  Oh, and after the birthday song is over, Aussies say "Hip hip, HOORAY! Hip hip HOORAY! Hip hip HOORAY!"  It's pretty cute!  So anyway, it ended up being a fun day at work. 

Since David has to work every Saturday, that Friday night was just your typical "weeknight" for us.  I did some packing and getting ready for my trip and watched American Idol of course (it plays on Thursdays and Fridays here). 

On Saturday (which was my actual birthday in the US), I met my friend Kim and her sweet baby Cooper for coffee, then I headed back home to talk to some friends and family on the phone.  That night, David took me out to dinner at one of Gladstone's few fine dining establishments (and even then, the term is used loosely).  It actually turned out to be quite nice.  It was a beautiful night, and we sat outside on the deck.  We shared a bottle of wine (Australian Shiraz, of course), and David somehow convinced me to try kangaroo finally- in the form of Kangaroo Spring Rolls.  Kangaroo is not something I ever thought I would eat- in fact, before moving here I didn't know that ANYONE actually ate kangaroo meat.  But hey, when in Australia, right?  I didn't hate it.  But I didn't love it.  It was kind of gamey- which I had heard might be the case.  Definitely not going to make it a part of my diet, but I guess I am glad I can say I tried it. 

All in all, it was a great FIRST Australian birthday and LAST birthday in my 20's.  I have a feeling though that it might just be the first of many times that I will turn 29 :-) 

*Excuse the awful photos.  The restaurant had some crazy blue overhead lighting that made everything look odd. 

 

Kangaroo Spring Rolls!





 

My hair looks crazy long here...

My handsome birthday date!