The Day I Survived Being Eaten By A Rock

Saturday (a couple Saturdays ago now...I'm real bad at writing these on time) a group of us Loyola kids got up early to head over to Waiheke. Tim, Matt, Anastasia, Libby, Aissa, Celeste, and I took the ferry over to Waiheke Island where we were met by our Marae trip (see the posts about Loyola at Leigh/Loyola takes Leigh) leader, Bianca, and her wife, two time Survivor participant, Ami Cusack. Shoutout & thanks to Tim for setting it all up for us!
Lol the reason I'm not supposed to wait this long to write these posts is so I don't forget things, so we'll see how I do...anyways. Once Bianca and Ami picked us up from the ferry we went to a lookout point where we could see where we had just come from, and we could even see Auckland in the distance.






Then we went to another lookout spot where we walked down a path to get to a beach.

View from spot above 

Walking to beach

On the beach

I like trees

Rocks are cool 

Bianca drove down to the beach so we didn't have to walk back up to the van. Then we were taken into the Man-O-War part of the island. The guy that owns it owns 1/6 of Waiheke Island and half of another island. (I think they said he owns like 1/3 of another part of NZ too but I'm not too certain..) So first we stopped at another lookout point, where Tim found a broken guitar.
From this lookout point you could see the water, the mountains, and the greenery that makes New Zealand New Zealand. 

Then we were taken to another green area where there were tons of rocks. The rocks got there by being flung there from a volcanic eruption! They were super cool. Then we walked through cow poop up a massive hill to go to Bianca and Ami's wedding spot. It was only Ami's third time being there (first on their first date, second on their wedding day, and third with us!), plus tomorrow (the day after we went to Waiheke) they leave for their honeymoon in the Cook Islands. How nice are they to be showing us around! 

Palm tree with no coconuts

So anyways, Bianca taught us about this palm tree that doesn't grow coconuts and we could see tons of islands and an oyster bed and all the way to the Coromandel Peninsula from on top of this giant cow poop filled mountain. Then we got to climb up on the rock they were married on, and when I was climbing up I fell and my poor camera hit the rock and now it doesn't like to properly work, but I still make it work sometimes. At first it was just super blurry because it was hurt that it hit the rock, then it kept telling me it was dead and wouldn't let me take pictures. Now I have new batteries in it so we'll see what happens. 

Then they took us to this rock called Monster Rock. You can see the picture in the opening of this post. The rock attempted to eat Celeste, Tim, and I but we survived because it's just a rock.
Next we went to the Man-O-War winery and had free wine tastings of all their wines. So the other day I was contemplating on why I would make a bad wife (there's actually lots of reasons. No cooking, no cleaning, blah blah), and I decided it was because I don't like wine. So this time I was all for trying to make myself like the wine. LOL no wine still sucks. There were three I could finish and didn't hate, the rest I would attempt to drink normally but then I had to just take it like a shot because let's be real, shots taste better. Even when they're medicine shots. They did have this honey wine made of the manuka honey though, and that was good. It was too sweet to just drink but it wasn't totally awful.
So we did a lot. & by that time we were all pretty much starving. So we went to Charley Farley's for lunch. While we were waiting for our food, Matt, Tim, a couple of the girls (Celeste and Libby? I forget which two tbh) and I went down to the beach for a race. I was not dressed properly for a race. I literally had to hold everything up: my pants, my bandeau. It was no bueno. But I didn't get last!! I didn't win immunity either, but I didn't get last! I didn't even get second to last! I got third. Go me. Matt won, but since we weren't really on survivor, instead of immunity he won a beer. Still, it was fun.
At lunch we all got to try pretty much everyone's food because that's what happens when you're on Survivor I guess. I didn't mind; I love food. So then we had to say what our favorite movie was and I was like "Legally Blonde" and Ami was like "Really? Not Clueless?" and I was just like omg I love Clueless how did you know!

Justin Timberlake ate here

Cable Bay view

After lunch we went to Cable Bay Vineyards. This is where Bianca met Kendrick Lamar! It's also the vineyard with the best view. So once we got here, we first went down into the like cellar-ish place, like it was downstairs in the basement and they kept their barreled wine there but they also had a super fancy dining room down there. That's where Justin Timberlake had dinner when he came to Waiheke! It was fun trying to imagine him at the table and guess which chair he sat in.
So then our group split into two. Half of us went upstairs for more wine tastings. The other half, including myself, went outside to sit on the lawn. I had enough wine for like months. No thanks. Plus everyone kept saying the Man-O-War wine was better anyways, so why would I wanna taste bad wine, plus you had to pay for this tasting.

Once we had gathered everyone, we had to go back to the ferry. On the way to the ferry, Ami told us a lot about Survivor. Like did you know the first 10 people to get voted off get sent on a super nice, all-paid for vacation, where they get $50 a day while there? The time Ami didn't do so well, she got sent to Thailand! Also the first two days they have like an orientation period where they show you what you can and cannot eat that's native, but you can't talk to anyone. People still make alliances with how they look at each other though. They're currently filming in Fiji; maybe I'll see them when I'm there! (But probably not because they pick smaller islands out of the group of islands and they block off the whole area.) It was cool learning about a show I had watched as a child from someone who was actually on the show, twice, and was so successful on it (she made it to the final 6 in season 9).

We were all a bit sad when the day was over because we had so much fun, but we were also very tired so the ferry ride back to Auckland was mostly quiet. There was a baby in front of us and Celeste is like the baby whisperer so it was cool seeing her interact with the thing. We also could see the city skyline in the sunset, but when we tried to get pictures with it, the wind got in the way.
The Pacific Pearl was also just leaving port and we crossed paths with it around Devonport. Of course I took an insane amount of pictures of it because I'm kinda obsessed and sad that I'm not on it. But oh well. Only 64 days until my next cruise.
Once we got to Auckland, our group split again and Anastasia, Tim, Aissa, and I went to this dessert place for fancy desserts. It was okay. I was also super hungry again.



Overall, it was a good day. I wouldn't mind going to Waiheke again if we had more time.

Until next time,

xoxo,

Tasha