For our third day of hiking on Waiheke the weather was not as promising as it had been on the first two. Indeed shortly after we set off in the morning, a fine yet driving rain blew in from the northwest. Fortunately we were well supplied with pack covers, jackets, and rain kilts so the weather didn’t bother us much. We had light rains on and off throughout the day, so kept having to pause and swap in and out of rain gear.

Our route this time took us counterclockwise around the western coast, which brought us to a new section of the island and allowed us to end near a highly recommended winery. The trail in this area mostly hugged the coastline, and was often literally cut into the side of the cliffs. In a few places the route has come a little too close to the edge, and parts of the former trail have actually collapsed into the waves below. We were forced to detour around one of these sections on the rocks below, taking advantage of the low tide.

Sharing the cliffside with us were massive Pohutakawa trees, sometimes hanging out crazily into empty space with their gnarled limbs often spreading across the trail. These slow-growing giants can live for a thousand years or more, and do particularly well on coastal cliffs where other trees just can’t grow. They have another distinction: around November and December the grow silvery buds that mature into red blooms, so they are know as New Zealand’s Christmas trees.

As planned, we ended our hike for the day close to the Mudbrick winery. They offered a tasting of six local Waiheke wines, which we were free to enjoy on their outdoor terrace (the rain had fortunately stopped by this point). Our table was visited by a rather bold duck who seemed to hope that we would have some food to share. She kindly posed for several pictures even when food was not forthcoming.

We closed out our visit to Waiheke with another short visit to the shops of Oneroa. (Susannah had hoped to visit a musical instrument museum that had been described in one of our guidebooks, but the hours had changed and it turned out to be open only on weekends.) After saying our farewells to Vicki (our local guide/host extraordinaire) we boarded the ferry for the trip back to Auckland — with the wind blowing up whitecaps the voyage was a bit rougher than the way out had been.

We had been advised to sample the local green-lipped mussels, and so on Vicki’s recommendation went for dinner to the Occidental, which serves them along with a fine selection of Belgian beers. Both were excellent.

Our last item to share concerns our hotel room in Auckland, which has a most unique decoration. They must have known somehow that Susannah is an engineer, and assigned us to this room accordingly. What fun!