Waiheke Island

elekie · Posted: Tue Mar 23, 2004 8:07 am Post subject: Waiheke Island

I'm looking for areas to move to in auckland and my husband has gone loopy over the idea of getting the ferry to work ! so we have been having a look at waiheke.
What do people think as we have never been there, are the schools any good and is it realistic to do the commute to auckland everyday ? Mr. Green

dan-ish · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 3:59 am Post subject: Probably no help at all!

Hey Surfer Chick (I guess that is what your Avatar is meant to mean?),

This probably isn't much help, but I had a day trip there when I was in NZ and thought it was great place. At one point we were passing a guy in his van on a very skinny road and it was a bit hairy at one stage. The guy just leant his head out the window, grinned a big cheesy grin and said "Waiheke time, man." Razz

That is my kinda attitude.

It is very beautiful and I think that the ferry time is managable, but I'm not sure it will be that cheap to buy property on the island as lots of Aucklanders have plush holiday homes there. Definately worth investigating though. Nice One

Dan-ish

elekie · Posted: Thu Mar 25, 2004 4:16 am Post subject:

Hay dan-ish
Thanks for writing back, I'm not a surfer yet but can't wait to start learning!
It sounds chilled out our kind of place, Nice One

I'm looking to set up a holiday let buisness when we settle eventually.
When and where are you moving to ?

eddy · I'll Hang Around A Little Joined: 06 Apr 2004 Posts: 11

Hi elekie,
Waiheke Island, well what can I say. The Island is a wonderful place, and who ever I meet that has'nt been there, I always say pay the place a visit.
But as for moving there and setting up home "Beware the Island has a habit of seduceing people and then spitting them out". as has already been said it used to be a hippy Island , and where Aucklanders had there holiday batches which some still own and use in the holidays, and only in the holidays.
we moved there about two years ago after falling in love with it , and moved off after about 8months as we were starting to go mad Nutcase

The weather in the summer was great , but the winter -hmmm very windy rainyand cold - we got through an amazing amount of wood.

just a few points that we found:
Quite expensive to buy normal household goods there - so a trip to Auckland with car necessary now and again ( lots of islanders had cars on the mainland as well)
All our food had to be kept in plastic storage containers due to the ants,
we also had quite a few resident mice and rats.
We also had mixed feelings about the school - some great teachers, but also lots of kids with social problems , disruptive behaviour etc
We found most Aucklanders that lived on the island sent their kids to schools on the mainland, which is quite a trip.
There is not that much on the island for older children to do ,especially in winter.

We met some wonderful people on the island ,
but there are three main groups of people who permanantly live there
retirees from Auckland ,
unemployed people on benefits - quite hard to get jobs there ,
and an ever changing array of expats - the real estate agents on the island resell houses bought by expats quite frequently ,
(The hippies not happy with the very high house prices have in the main moved on to great barrier)

By all means give the island a go - it can be great , just thought I would give you some things to consider

,not many people who move there for the lifestyle last for long.

good luck

Also, ferry very nice in summer , not too great in winter with bad weather!!