WAIHEKE ISLAND!

Never have I felt so happily unprepared for an excursion in my life. Off to Waiheke Island, a group of ten including myself hopped on a ferry from Auckland with only small backpacks stuffed with clothing, sneakers, sunscreen, cameras, and wallets. One of the ten had the bright idea to bring a two-person tent just in case; the rest of us were just ready to roll into whatever came our way. Of course the ferry ride had breathtaking views because every where you turn your head, you are bound to see something beautiful here in New Zealand. With no idea what to do, where to go, how to get there, and where to stay the night, we stepped off the ferry onto Waiheke ready to begin our journey. First stop, scooter rentals? No way! Eighty-eight bucks for one day! Ridiculous! Now what? Bike rentals or car rentals? Surprisingly, renting a van that seats exactly ten people is about the same price as renting a scooter (minus insurance.) So this only put us at $15 per person once we divided it up. But wait, we have to drive on the left side of the road and the driver sits on the right? That's a bit of a mind twister. Until we find out that this van is not automatic like most American cars, but manual with the stick shift where? On the left? Oh boy! However, the genious who brought the tent happened to also be the genious who knew how to drive stick and was brave enough to try it the opposite way. So we were off to explore! Here is what we found:

Naturally, we located some beaches where we took the time to soak up copious amounts of sunshine. We also discovered that there are about 18 vineyards and we took this opportunity to do some exquisite wine tasting. While this day was spontaneous, we kept it pretty simple and decided to make it an adventure of doing what we want when we wanted. Because of this mind set, I found it to be the most relaxing and yet exciting day of this entire trip thus far. However, when night fell, our spontaneousness creeped out and came back to bite us. We found quite a lovely spot to park by a beach with a playground and a grill. We couldn't have picked a better spot to camp out for the night, all ten of us, with only our beautiful van and two-person tent. So we grilled up some LAMBurgers (didn't realize that we bought lamb/beef burgers until we ate them) and corn and enjoyed a nice stroll on the breezy evening beach. When exhaustion overcame us and we decided to say goodbye to our perfect day, seven of us booked it to the van in hopes that it would be more warm and comfortable than the tent. This left the remaining three to find that there was absolutely NO room left and pitching the tent was the only option. This tent fit two of the three and the one genious who brought the tent also was the only to bring a sleeping bag, therefore he beached it in his sleeping bag under the stars and left the other two to the tent. I thought I was lucky being in the van, until I realized there was only room for me to curl up on two of the seats, no blanket, and my only pillow was my salty, wet towel that was also caked with sand. Every hour I woke up to either my feet cramping, someone snoring, feeling the need to stretch out, feeling the need to curl up and cuddle with myself to keep warm, and the aweful stench of mildew from soaked towels, swim suits, and my crumpled up towel pillow. I don't think I will ever find an airplane so painful to sleep on after this experience. Once the sun was up, we all were more than happy to get back on that ferry as soon as possible so we could hug our beds for the rest of the day. Of course the only person to be rewarded a pleasant night's sleep was mr. genious who slept under the stars in his comfortable and warm sleeping bag. The other two in the tent found that although they could stretch out, towels were not sufficient blankets and thus shivered the entire night. Despite that dreadful night however, I found that the trip was my favorite adventure and still only the beginning of more adventures to come (except we may put a little more thought into our plans in the future.)