Waiheke Island

(Visited on Monday, March 7, 2011.) Sadly, after a year and a half, most of the details from our New Zealand trip are fading, but Waiheke Island was a fun day trip from Auckland. We caught a ferry at the Downtown Ferry Terminal.

We made the short hike to lovely Oneroa Beach from the ferry terminal, and then took a cab to the highlight of our day – lunch at Te Whau Vineyard. The view was screensaver gorgeous, and the food was absolutely delicious – probably the best meal we had during our entire ten-day trip!

The Bluff Oysters were a special treat. They just came in season as we arrived in March, and are so delicious and prized that there are strict quotas for the amount each fisherman can catch. I like oysters in general, but wouldn't say I ever craved them...until I tasted these guys. They were the sweetest, juiciest oysters I've ever had. I think they also cost more than a buck apiece, so they definitely weren't cheap, but if you have the chance to try some, DO IT. They only grow off the coast of New Zealand (I think at a town called Bluff).

We spent the rest of the day taking the bus and strolling around town as we made our way back to the ferry terminal. Oneroa Beach and Onetangi Beach were very lovely.

And here's the obligatory funny sign we saw as we headed back to Auckland in the afternoon.

Updates After a Long Hiatus

Believe it or not, it wasn't only laziness that kept me from writing here in the last year and a half. After we got home from New Zealand, I thought surely there must be a more satisfying way to share pictures and stories from our trips. I considered making physical books using sites like SnapFish or Mixbook but that seemed like too much work. I also considered moving everything to G+, but the structure of posts aren't very expressive. Eventually I came back to Blogger and realized that wow, maybe all I had to do was wait for them to improve this site! The editor is much nicer now, so I'm going to attempt to catch up on all my missing posts here.

Since last spring, we've gone some amazing places: Big Island, Belize, and just last week, El Pescadero, Mexico! About three weeks ago, I joined a new team at Google that I'm really, really excited about. Next week, we're going to Austin for Staceyfest IV. Over Thanksgiving, we're going to Costa Rica for Jinger and Calvin's wedding. And over Christmas, my family is meeting up in Key Largo. So now seems like a good time to look back and remember a good year, before it all disappears from memory, replaced by new adventures in my LRU cache of a brain. Stay tuned!