Waiheke Island
— — a vineyard slope dropping into blue.
Not only on a wall.
“Waiheke sits in the Hauraki Gulf about 17 kilometres east of downtown Auckland, a 40-minute ferry across the harbour. The island is shaped like a long, broken spine running east to west, with white-sand bays on the north coast and slow olive groves and vineyards rising behind them. Onetangi runs nearly two kilometres of pale sand; Oneroa village above Oneroa Bay holds the small galleries and the cafés. Roughly 9,000 people live on the island full-time, more than double that in summer. The light off the gulf is the long Pacific kind. from the studio
Waiheke Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Waiheke is the second-largest island in the Hauraki Gulf and, after Great Barrier, the most populous. It covers roughly 92 square kilometres east of central Auckland and is administered as part of Auckland Council. The island runs east to west along a broken volcanic ridge, with the north coast cut into a long sequence of sandy bays — Oneroa, Palm Beach, Onetangi — and the south coast falling more sharply to the gulf. About 9,000 people live there year-round. The Māori name Waiheke is generally translated as cascading waters, a reference to the streams that drain the central ridge toward the sea.
Most visitors arrive by ferry from downtown Auckland's Britomart terminal, a 40-minute passenger crossing operated several times an hour during the day. A car ferry runs from Half Moon Bay in eastern Auckland to Kennedy Point on the island's southwest, about 45 minutes. There is no airport; small charter flights use a grass strip. Once on the island, a local bus loop links the main villages, but the slopes of the wine country are best handled by tour van or hire car. The island holds about 30 vineyards on warm north-facing slopes, with cellar doors open year-round and concentrated west of Onetangi.
Waiheke's climate is warmer and drier than central Auckland — sheltered from the prevailing southwesterlies by the city and the gulf islands, the island sees roughly 1,000 millimetres of rain a year. Summer runs from December through February with long evenings on the bays; autumn brings the grape harvest through March and April. Onetangi Bay holds nearly two kilometres of white sand on the north coast, and the headlands east of it carry a coastal walking track linking Onetangi to Cactus Bay and beyond. Winter is the gentle quiet stretch, with low gulf light and the vineyards stripped to wire.