This. Is. Auckward.: Weekend, Wine, Waiheke.

We haven't been so good at posting more than once a week - we'll work on it - so we're finally getting around to sharing last weekend's travels.

Waiheke is a quaint little island in the harbor just off the coast of Auckland, known formerly for its hippies and tree-huggers, and now for its vineyards and multimillion dollar properties. We fit in with those categories.

The ferry's only 35 minutes.

That's Auckland, our house is about a kilometer past that bush on the left.

Sailing, not so much without wind.

We booked a room at this hostel, deep in the bush of the island. What? It is pretty deep in the bush. There were tons of Europeans. Deep in the bush.

We had just a short walk through the jungle (sorry, "bush") where we took some senior pictures.

And made our way to a disc golf course, set along some hills overlooking a rugby match. This hill was on about a 40 degree incline.

Self-timed selfies!

Worked up a bit of a thirst, so we rested our bones at a scenic vineyard.

Instead of wine, we were offered water. Because we were very sweaty humans. Then we chased that with flights of wine.

You know how you're supposed to stick your nose into the glass when tasting wine? No? Well, I'm pretty sure it's a thing, and it was next to impossible here. That, or my schnoz is pretty huge. Tasty nonetheless.

Our walk down from the winery featured this vista overlooking Onetangi beach.

Ashley is an artist. Exhibit A.

Exhibit B.

Junk... or perhaps useful? This is how rubbish is disposed of here.

Sunday featured a walk to Palm Beach (NTPB).

This is where the nudes go. We ventured down the path in feigned ignorance. Owen took his shirt off as a show of good faith to all the nudists.

Can you spot any butts?

We opted for the non-nudist beach, and found a nice quiet spot on the sand. We only later discovered that the spot had already been claimed by one of the many off-leash dogs wandering the beach.

We've basically been living off of Fish and Chips. We feel obligated to sample this local Kiwi delicacy whenever we stumble across it.

Later that evening , we took a sunset cruise back to the city. It was cloudy and there was no real sunset, but the nighttime cityscape was pretty okay.