Arriving in Auckland we were so excited! We returned to Auckland 1 year later and looked forward to seeing Weiheke Island which we visited on our Australian/New Zealand cruise last year.
We promptly were in group 1 disembarking the ship and headed onto the reserved 45 minute ferry ride to Weiheke Island.
The tour included three wineries and a brief stop in the town to get some shopping for souvenirs. Breakfast wine at Mudbrick to start, Batch Winery for lunch and then top it off at Cable Bay before heading back.
It was just as we remember it – had a great lunch at Batch winery which sat on top a hill with a great view. Shopping in Oneroa was short but we did get another piece of art for our collection.
We returned to Auckland 7 hours later, did a quick but short walk-a-bout in the nearby downtown shopping district and was back on board 30 minutes before the prescribed time. Perfect day!
Sailing out of Auckland our ship was in the bay where New Zealanders love to have yacht races (namely the America’s cup) but today there was a regatta race of various classes of yacht that were in the same lane as our outgoing ship – in fact the captain had to blow the ships horn a bunch of times as one class leader did not want to tack and was on a collision course with the Viking Sky and finally pulled the spinnaker and turned to avoid a collision – not sure if the yacht team thought they had the right of way, but most certainly they did not.
We have 3 more stops in New Zealand – Tauranga, Napier and Wellington – three places we have been before and we had things we did not do the last time we were there that we wanted to do this time – so new things for us!
