Had a great time doing a wine tour on Waiheke Island, which is a 45 minute ferry ride from downtown Auckland. It is a beautiful island with 30 wineries in very rolling country side. We had tastings at 4 wineries and got an excellent tour of the island, which has a population of 10,000.
NZ is very much a sailing community. We saw many sailboats during our ferry ride, either out for a sail, or anchored in coves. Auckland is a big sailing centre having hosted two America’s Cups. The downtown harbour had some lovely old sailing boats, an America’s Cup boat – KZ1, and New Zealand Lion, designed for a mid 80s Whitbread around the world race, it came in second.