🥝 Waiheke Island
#2 Those Dreamy Greens, the Vibrant Blue, and the Long White Cloud
‘[Alice] — Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
[The Cheshire Cat] — That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
— I don’t much care where.
— Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go.
— …so long as I get somewhere.
— Oh, you’re sure to do that, if only you walk long enough.' — Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
1
Those Dreamy Greens
— Look! We are not the only two idiots walking! (said my partner, almost shouting and pointing at the middle-aged couple a few meters before us down the road). The Sun was strong and we had walked from Big Oneroa Beach for about half an hour, although by that point we weren’t far from our destination.
I love that quote from Alice in Wonderland: ‘if only you walk long enough’... Sometimes we look for shortcuts in life, to get to places or to outcomes through the shortest distances. But only walking long enough actually takes us to the best places. Or to many more at least.
The reward at the end of that walk was to get to Mudbrick Vineyard and Winery, recommended by a couple of colleagues at work, and enjoy a cold, fruity white wine overlooking the dreamy greens of the vineyards and the harbour. I find the wines here in NZ quite sweet in general, even the reds.
Earlier that morning we had also walked along Oneroa Beach, where the lush forest touched the sand and houses would suddenly appear from within. I wondered whether that was also the place where tourists seemed to vanish, among that leafy vegetation, swallowed by the forest, as we experienced the strange case of the island being quite empty but the ferry to it being extremely packed. We had waited for about an hour in line to catch the ferry to Waiheke so we were expecting a busy, touristy island. Fortunately for us, we were wrong. Still, we only covered the very western tip of the place, so my envision of people becoming literally part of the place in the form of vegetation was dismantled by the reality that the island was big enough to spread crowds around.
I still imagined…
I regret, though, not having spent more time on that lovely bench overlooking the bay opposite Oneroa, where this beautiful tree was just there ready to be looked at. ‘The ones we love, never truly leave us’, the carving on the wood bench said.
The blue was so vibrant.
2
The Vibrant Blue
Waiheke Island had been our very first trip outside of Auckland after Gabrielle in mid-February. We were still, technically, in Summer. We jumped on a ferry that took about 45 minutes from Queen’s Wharf to the island.
As we navigated through Hauraki Gulf, we saw islands like Motutapu, Motuihe, Motukorea, and Rangitoto. The latter, we later learned after a nice play we saw at The Pump House in Takapuna, is the youngest volcano in New Zealand. And after you notice it for the first time, you then start to see it frames almost every view of the Gulf from and towards Auckland.
It was a sunny Saturday after the heavy rains. There were dozens of boats sailing that morning, and when approaching Waiheke from the west, one could see all the fantastic greens populating the mounts and cliffs, growing from very turquoise waters that blurred with a vibrant blue sky.
Looking back towards Auckland from the ferry: the unique skyline, contoured by the Sky Tower, topped by the very Long White Cloud. The first time of many we will see it over Auckland.
3
The Long White Cloud
Aotearoa is the Māori name for New Zealand, roughly translating as ‘the land of the long white cloud’. As we left behind Tāmaki Makaurau (that’s the Māori name for Auckland) towards Waiheke Island at the beginning of the journey, we only started getting a glimpse of how beautiful these northlands are and the marvelous, rich landscape this country is revealing to us.
It is exciting to live in a place like this for a little while. Truly, our adventures have just started.
We will make sure we walk long enough.
✏️✨
Happy sketching!
Ana
PS
On the process
The way I have written this chronicle is how I want to remember this trip.
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