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Hello and welcome back to the long overdue second part of my ‘Week on Waiheke’ (which wasn’t actually a full week) review of the Island.

In the first leg, we tried a lot of new restaurants, went on some walks and visited the wineries. This second leg is a little different.

As you know, we had already discovered the amazing Cafe Bisou by now but more on that to come.

Chocolate Mouse at Charlie Farly's
It tasted as good as it looked!

Day 3

I stopped Part 1 of the article just after we finished our ‘exotic’ lunch at Ki Maha. As e tried some rather unique and quite raw food for lunch, we felt like dinner needed to be a little more homely. Nothing like a good ol’ burger to remind you of your roots. Well, my burger at Charlie Farlys was not good and it wasn’t old either. The burger was bloody brilliant and it was a very modern spin on this classic dish.

I had a wagyu beef burger with a juicy patty and some dijon mustard I think along with other exotic ingredients. Normally, I know full well what goes into my food but this burger tasted so good that I just couldn’t. I was too busy enjoying it! As some of you might know, I am a simple man as far as food is concerned. A burger and chocolate mousse is all that it takes to make me happy. So, I had a chocolate mousse after wolfing down my burger. As you can see in the above photo, the mousse looked great and tasted even better. The raspberry crumble perfectly complemented the chocolate and the cream. It makes my mouth froth just thinking about it.

Waiheke Island at night
Beautiful through the day and the night.

While the days are beautiful on Waiheke, there is something to be said about the nights as well. We went for an after dinner walk along Onetangi beach, admiring the shimmering moonlight on the water. It was such a beautiful night in fact that we decided to go for a drive and ended up going to Ocean View Road. After all, everything is only 10 minutes away on Waiheke! The view was so nice in fact that we went for a drive and stopped by to capture this scene. A scene that reminded me of the ‘I have a dream scene’ from Mamma Mia, the movie. What a view, a photo can’t do it justice!

Waiheke Island at night
It’s like the ‘I have a dream’ scene from Mama Mia.

Day 4

Day 4 was just a blur. We went and saw some more of Waiheke’s sights, lounged around on the beach and so on. And of course, we had a mid morning breakfast at Bisou. The second day in a row that we went there and it seemed like the rest of the island had just got to know about it as well! We had a relatively quite afternoon indoors as the sun was beating down on the island. Word of warning, it gets unbearably hot by around 10AM on Waiheke so make sure to hit the beaches early or wait for the heat to die down. The highlight of day 4 was our dinner at Three Seven Two.

Dinner at Three Seven Two
Dinner at Three Seven Two

This is a restaurant which holds a very special place in my heart alongside the Hyundai Venue because it hosted our group for dinner on the press launch of the car. It was a great experience at a fitting destination for the car as you can read here. Three Seven Two lived up to my memories from the launch, the food was excellent and the hospitality even better! It is an expensive restaurant no doubt but you don’t have to rack up a big bill to enjoy the food they have. We ordered a variety of starters and sides along with a main to share. That way we could enjoy the best that the restaurant had to offer because there was just so much! I had the Bostock buttermilk fried chicken, lip smackingly good. Same goes for the seafood dishes which were as good as the view from our table! We loved the place so much in fact that we booked a table for lunch on our last day!

Day 5

Here it is, day 5. The culmination of my week which wasn’t actually a week on Waiheke! We continued on our tradition from the past 2 days by going to Bisou for breakfast. We couldn’t bear to go without it so we ordered croissants, pan-au chocolats and some other baked goodies to take home! We couldn’t really do much since we only had half a day so we decided to do what Waiheke residents do and just slow down and relax! Something that we city slickers don’t normally do. We loved every moment of our holiday on Waiheke Island, so much so that it got my parents searching for a house there! The charm of the island and the warmth of the people are unmatched in the Auckland district. But all good things must come to end and there we were at the end of our holiday with bags of French baked goods. On the bright side, we still had a delicious lunch to enjoy at Three Seven Two. So, with a great holiday etched into our memories and the promise to Waihekeans that we would be back, we ventured back to the ferry and on towards mainland Auckland.

Onetangi Beach
We found ourselves back at Onetangi Beach once again

A pleasant surprise on the ferry ride was the chance to see Ineos Team UK practicing for the America’s Cup on the water!

Team Ineos Grenadier UK practicing
Ineos Team UK out on the water

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed my two part piece on Waiheke Island, there’s a reason why it’s such a sought after holiday destination!

Make sure to read some of our other travel pieces while you’re here 🙂

Words and pictures by Matthew D’Souza.

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