About a 30 minute fast ferry ride from Auckland lies the island of Waiheke, blessed with a pleasingly fractal coastline that offers gorgeous views in nearly every direction. Some lucky souls get to live in this beautiful place and commute to their jobs in the city; this morning we were going in the other direction along with a host of day-trippers. The plan is to spend three days hiking the coastal Ta Ara Hura trail (called a “tramping track” by the locals) that encircles the island — partly as a warmup for some of the bigger hikes we have planned for later in the trip, and partly just because it’s so gosh-darn pretty in its own right.

The ferry landing is on the western edge of the island at the harbor in Matiatia Bay (you can see the dotted line coming in on the map), and we planned to hike clockwise to reach our lodgings at Onetangi Beach about 18km away. At first, our route took us around and over the headlands at the northwest corner of the island. Until we rounded the corner to the north side, we could still see the buildings of the Auckland CBD rising across the water, along with later ferries moving back and forth. We think Auckland is much prettier from the water.

Although the island isn’t particularly elevated, the Ta Ara Hura trail we were following has a lot of short steep ups and downs, hopping over rocky headlands before descending again into the next cove. Parts of the route are accessible only at low tide — luckily, that included the times we wanted to pass, except for one section of beach toward the end of the day where we chose to scramble over a section of sharp volcanic rocks to reach the next bit, rather than taking the longer and less scenic high-tide detour.

Besides beaches and hiking, Waiheke is also known for its vineyards and we passed many fields of grapevines during our walk. The wineries are mostly open on weekends so we didn’t get to stop at any today, but we had the chance to sample some of the local vintages at dinner and they are quite tasty. We also sampled the local sorbet while passing through Oneroa, the largest town on the island. Passion fruit and mango, mmmm!

The climate here is oddly unsettling, in a pleasant way. There are many tropical plants mixed with temperate ones, and on the whole it feels lush like a rainforest. Yet the temperature is lovely for hiking, in the 60s all day long even in full sun, with pleasant breezes to boot. Portions of the trail passed through nature reserves, where local volunteers are working to restore the plant species that were living here before European settlement. It is spring here, and it seems like all the flowers are in bloom at once, scenting the air with their perfume.

Our logistics for this portion of the trip are being handled by Vicki of iWalkWaiheke Tours. She transported most of our bags to our lodging so that we only needed to carry day packs, and at the end of the day cooked and served us a delicious three-course meal. We highly recommend her to anyone who wants to visit the island.

Tomorrow we look forward to day two on Waiheke.