Waiheke Island travel tips

Our Waiheke Island travel tips:

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  Walk to cute Oneroa village and explore its lovely long beach
• Lots of things to do: browse the art galleries and visit Waiheke’s famous sculpture gardens
• Enjoy luxury lunch in one of the amazing vineyard restaurants
• Go for a swim from one of the about 40 attractive beaches and bays
• Walk part of the round-the-island Te Ara Hura Walkway and find the many magic corners of this little Pacific island!

Waiheke Island highlights

• Arriving in pretty Matiatia Bay by ferry, visitors usually make their way to Oneroa village, an easy (but not really short) walk away. This is the prettiest little village on the island, geared up to charm tourists and weekenders with its many shops, art galleries, cafes and restaurants. It’s just a short walk away from the beautiful beach that stretches all along the bay, in summer a great spot for a swim. Blackpool Beach with the local Maori meeting house - Piritahi Marae - is just on the southern side of the island, with less than a kilometre between both beaches. Worth the trip to also see the godwits who make their temporary home on this beach in summer, before migrating back to Siberia and China - the longest bird migration in the world.
• Picturesque Little Oneroa Bay is just a bit further on over a rocky hill, also great for swimming and with a cute little dairy shop opposite the beach. The next major destination is Palm Beach, make sure to take a map as the hilly maze of streets can easily lead you astray.
• Onetangi Beach is equally beautiful and worth a visit, still built up with holiday homes but long enough to find a lonely stretch of white sand. Once a year the beach is hosting a horse race!
• The eastern half of the island is very quiet, with only a few goals for further sightseeing apart from the wineries, one being the tiny settlement of Orapiu in the south east and the other being the Stony Batter Reserve with its WW2 fortifications. The road there is unsealed after the Orapiu turnoff and partly very steep, it also involves a further walk from the carpark.
• Another nice headland to explore is Rocky Bay, Kuakarau Bay and Omiha Bay, the bush setting is quite a contrast to the developed northwestern areas. Ostend and Surfdale are Waiheke's service centres, with a supermarket and lots of other shops for the locals, but also an attractive Saturday market with local produce, arts and crafts that appeal to visitors. Many of the other headland roads end at private properties with huge mansions, both grand old designs and futuristic modern pads for the super rich, set in enormous grounds with beach access.
• Around 30 vineyards are dotted all across the island, even in the furthest corners and bays you’ll find them. Wine growing started in the 1950s but really took of in the 1990s, taking advantage of the drier and milder ocean climate and a big variation of soils on hilly landscapes. Being an easy day trip from Auckland especially boosted cellar door sales and enabled a thriving vineyard restaurant scene. Popular grapes are Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Malbec and Pinot Gris.
• The best swimming beaches on Waiheke Island are probably the long and central Oneroa Beach (‘one’ = beach, ‘roa’ = long...) and Little Oneroa Beach just a bit further on, easy to reach for ferry passengers. Also Palm Beach is a favourite, with nice rocks at one end and a mature palm tree stand at the other end, less touristy because it is beyond walking distance for most visitors. Onetangi Beach is nearly 2 km long and the last of the densely populated areas. Of course there are lots more smaller beaches and rocky bays around the island, with the south-facing ones only slightly less appealing, due to having stones rather than sand. Many beaches have rocky side bays where naturists are tolerated, so if you plan a swim in the nude in New Zealand this is the spot!
• Waiheke Island is great for swimming, shopping -  and walking! From Little Oneroa Bay on the Te Ara Hura Walkway is particularly interesting, leading to beautiful Palm Beach via rocky cliffs and other bays like Sandy Bay and Enclosure Bay.

How to get to Waiheke Island

Depending on whether you come by foot or with your own transport there are two ferry ports to choose from. Most foot passengers will take a ferry from Wynyard quarter in downtown Auckland to Matiatia Bay on the western tip of Waiheke Island.

From Matiatia Bay you can either walk to Oneroa village or take a bus/taxi. If you don’t want to walk along the street there’s a bush track parallel to the road in Atawhai Whenua Reserve, the beach side entrance is past the bridge. Matiatia Bay is also on the round-the-island Te Ara Hura Walkway, but it will take you either 2,5 hours to walk to Oneroa or over 5 hours to walk to Blackpool from here. In the ferry terminal or in Oneroa village you can also rent cars, bikes, scooters, book island explorer buses – plenty of transport options for the many visitors!

If you’d like to take your car or motorbike you’ll probably take a ferry from Half Moon Bay to Kennedy Wharf on the southern tip of Waiheke Island, maybe there are also options on the Wynyard ferry. The infrastructure and location for this option is better suited for self-driving visitors.

The best Waiheke Island walks

• Te Ara Hura Walkway -  4 day walking loop all around the island to all the best spots
• Oneroa Bay to Palm Beach - probably the best stretch of the Te Ara Hura Walkway, take a bus back to Oneroa or to the ferry terminal at Matiatia (2,5 hours one way)
• Matiatia to Oneroa via Atawhai Whenua Reserve - 40 minute slightly uphill bush walk from the ferry terminal to the main village
• Matiatia headland walk which features the famous ‘Sculpture on the Gulf’ art trail in February, start at the end of Matiatia beach, back via Nick Johnstone Drive and Oneroa (2,5 hrs)
• Stony Batter Historic Reserve - WW2 tunnels (may be closed off) and gun emplacements (25 mins one way), access from the carpark off Man O' War Bay Road
• Whakanewha Regional Park - bush tracks like the Pa Loop Track (30 mins) to an ancient Maori fortress and lookout point, access from 75 Gordons Road

The best Waiheke Island lookouts

• Oneroa Bay lookouts - from Beach Parade, a rocky viewpoint near the church and up the stairs into Newton Road Reserve
• Palm Beach lookout from Great Barrier Road
• Onetangi Beach lookout - from the stairs up to Belle Terrace Reserve at the eastern end of the beach
• Trig lookout - Delamore Drive

The best Waiheke Island museums

• Waiheke Museum and Historic Village, Onetangi Straight
• Whittaker's Musical Museum, Korora Road

Map of Waiheke Island

View large New Zealand map

Other islands in the Hauraki Gulf you can visit from Auckland:

• Rangitoto Island
• Motutapu Island
• Rotoroa Island
• Rakino Island
• Tiritiri Matangi
• Kawau Island
• Great Barrier Island

Back to New Zealand regions

Shopping Waiheke Island style:

Maori meeting house:

Otakawhe Bay:

Stony Batter Historic Reserve:

A remote Waiheke beach:

Stylish houses:

Oneroa Bay:

Not only vineyards, also sheep farming:

The beach at Kennedy Wharf:

Waiheke fishing:

Palm Beach:

Enclosure Bay:

Sandy Bay:

Waiheke art sculpture trail:

Matiatia Bay: