Exciting news for the Waiheke Walking Festival – presented by Ray White Waiheke.

We will be opening up early bookings for our Walk and Accommodation Package, as well as our incredibly popular Te Ara Hura 100km 5 day walk adventure – see below for booking dates.

We’ve also got a few teasers for walks we are planning, especially for those of you who like walking, talking, eating and sipping…

We thought we’d share a couple of great photos from our early morning Matariki walk –  it was a stunner.

We hear from Make Tracks, one of our major sponsors, who want your help to nominate a community project that they can assist with on Waiheke Island.

We told you it was an exciting newsletter!

Make Tracks is part of our major sponsor family.  Gary Wilton leads the Make Tracks team and is as much a part of our Waiheke landscape as the tracks that he creates. Gary started the Waiheke Walking Festival back in 2010; he managed the Gulf Islands’ parks and reserves for 11 years and now – quite simply – he likes to help you find your happy place.

You might want to create a track around parts of your property which gives you a truer connection to the land.  There’s something special about discovering parts of this Island that you haven’t seen before.

Gary’s pretty passionate about helping our Waiheke community – so it’s NOMINATION TIME.  Do you know of a project that would need some Make Track’s know-how and expertise?  Gary is happy to give one or two days of the team’s time – with the end goal of helping a community group or someone with a special requirement.  Last year Gary put in a walking track down the driveway to Waiheke Community Childcare Centre which keeps our Island tamariki safe.

Email info@waihekewalkingfestival.org and nominate your community project and we’ll share it with Gary.

For our 2021 Festival, the 5-day Te Ara Hura Walk Adventure will be offered twice – one is for the early birds with starts at 7:30am most mornings, and the other has the positively luxurious start time of 9am.  We cap the number of participants at 30, and all walkers need to have good fitness for approximately 20km (5-7 hours) each day of Waiheke hills, at a moderate pace.

So if you want to get your group ready to book this walk, or come solo and make some new friends, here are the dates:

Option 1 – Early Bird Te Ara Hura (7:30am starts) Wednesday 10th – Sunday 14th November

Option 2 – Te Ara Hura (9am starts) Monday 15th – Friday 19th November.

Bookings open July 21st at 10am for Friends and Patrons, and August 1st at 10am for everyone else. 

What an achievement to walk 100km over 5 days!

For more information CLICK HERE

Bookings open July 21st at 10am for Friends and Patrons, and August 1st at 10am for everyone else. 

We are offering this package twice – both with 2 nights accommodation and 3 days of different guided walks and experiences. The package includes all transport on the island, 2 breakfasts, 3 lunches, local guides and unlimited fun!

Last year’s walk and accommodation guests loved this package; they got to enjoy Waiheke hospitality, fabulous walks and have all their transfers and walk connections sorted for them.  Seamless, and sorted for you!

This year’s packages offer the same. Our guests stay at the lovely, relaxed Kiwi House in Oneroa, which is an easy walk to beaches, as well as Oneroa village.

Our first walk and accommodation package runs from Wednesday 10th – Friday 12th November and takes in walks to Passage Rock vineyard and Mudbrick as well as offering one of our ‘Best of Te Ara Hura’ 10km walks (the one with the rope-assisted hill climb)!

Our second package runs from the Wednesday 17th – Friday 19th November and includes Batch vineyard, Mudbrick and a beautiful walk through the Whakanewha regional park from Waiheke’s eclectic Rocky Bay.

Expect to walk a lot, relax with like-minded people and enjoy everything Waiheke has to offer.

With only 12 spaces on each walk, this package will book out fast, so check in with your walk buddies now and get ready for when bookings open next week.

Full itinerary and details will be available online from 10am on July 21st.

For more information CLICK HERE

On 26 June, walkers, passionate astronomers and locals gathered on Oneroa beach to take in a short walk in the dark along the waterfront and up to Artworks.

On arrival, our group was welcomed by Ngāti Pāoa with a pōwhiri and karakia. They shared some kōrero about Matariki with us, and Dark Sky Waiheke Island pointed out the night sky and its astronomical meaning around Matariki. While the cloud cover didn’t help – it was an amazing and rich way to start a beautiful day on Waiheke Island.

Thanks so much to our Waiheke Walking Festival volunteers for helping our walkers on the day, and a huge thanks for Ngāti Pāoa and Dark Sky Waiheke Island.

Sneak peek into a the new foodie progressive walk for 2021

Our progressive walks are always popular – and fair enough! It says a lot of about our hospitality spots on the Island.  When we also include guided walks through private land, and stunning scenery and exclusive wine and food matches – what’s not to like?

This year we will still run the Festival favourite progressive walk through Onetangi valley  – which visits Casita Miro, Tantalus Estate and Onetangi beach favourite Three Seven Two. Thanks to Full Circle for allowing us access to their land to ensure this walk across the valley happens.

This year we also want to include our friends from the western end of the island, with a progressive walk from Little Oneroa up to Oyster Inn for an entree and wine match.  From there we climb up to the Trig and drop down to Mudbrick for lunch and wine and then wander downhill to Ahipao for dessert on the Matiatia waterfront.

It’ll be tough to choose between these – so maybe do both! You’ll be walking off your lunch anyway!

Friends and Patrons can book this walk mid-September, with general bookings opening up on 1 October.