Along for the RIDE
Michelle Hurley finally takes the reins during a family trip to Waiheke
It started when she was about 7, the requests for horse-riding lessons, she and her best mate. After a few holiday lessons, the regular, fortnightly ones began. A year later we’d gone weekly, out in Kumeu, where, when it was my turn to take them, I would drive wistfully past the wineries before settling in for an hour of watching the girls learn to trot, then canter, trying not to giggle at the sturdy English matrons having lessons beside them, living out their childhood dreams.
Then the pleas to lease a horse began. (Was that even a thing?) Her neighbour had gone down that route and I would watch her mother drive out to Massey four times a week, praying I wasn’t watching my future self. For you see, what I could never fully admit to Honor was that horses left me a little cold.
So when the invitation arrived to send a writer and their family on a horse trek on Waiheke Island, I knew there was an accommodation to be made with my daughter’s greatest love.
Luckily there was a sweetener to the deal, the horse trek and the cottage at which we would stay, is part of a 400ha forest and property, and also houses the Te Matuku Oyster farm. Oysters, ocean, and a two-hour horse trek: we would all be happy.
It’s just over a half-hour drive from the passenger ferry to Te Matuku. The property is on private land, owned by businessman and environmentalist Sir Rob Fenwick and his wife, Lady Jennie Fenwick.
They live up the hill, something we didn’t quite realise until after we met them a couple of times, possibly because of the casual way they introduced themselves as Rob and Jennie. “How long have you lived on Waiheke?” I asked. “Oh, about 30 years,” said Jennie. “No wonder you’re so happy!” I said brightly, unaware they owned the entire farmland.
Oyster Cottage where we stayed, is glorious. One hundred years old, it is heritage-listed and by virtue of that, sits closer to the water than just about any other place you can stay at on Waiheke. Simply but comfortably furnished, it looks directly out on to Te Matuku Bay. At high tide it’s lovely for swimming, or you can borrow a kayak and paddle over to a white-sand beach in the scenic reserve on the other side of the bay.
Within sight, too, are the oyster beds. Rob and Jennie and other investors rebuilt the beds in the 1990s, replacing the timber rack and rail structures with suspended Seapra baskets, minimising the impact on the environment.
They’ve also spearheaded a move to encourage restaurants to buy the oysters live and shuck them to order, maximising their taste.
But at least one of us couldn’t care less about oysters. On the Saturday morning, we were scheduled to do a two-hour horse trek, run by Liz Hewson and her company Waiheke Horse Tours, but in the meantime, there were chickens to check outside the cottage — we were allowed to take some eggs when the hens laid; a wonderful vege garden to forage in and — grazing next to the road in and out of the property — horses to pat and feed grass to. One of Liz’s horses, Josh, would bound up to us and cuddle us — it was more than a nuzzle I swear. A little chink in my armour started to break then.
It’s about a 20-minute drive to Onetangi beach from the cottage. We hadn’t organised ourselves to cook, so we headed to Charlie Farley’s, a restaurant on the beachfront, which had, you guessed it, Te Matuku oysters on the menu (they are fantastic, by the way, clean and briny, a dozen slipping down easily), as well as an excellent pulled beef burger and small but tasty spiced minced chicken in lettuce cups.
At 11am the next day, under clear skies, we met Liz who would be taking us on our two-hour trek up and over the peninsula ridge line through the farmland. She is a woman who loves her work; affable, charming and extremely competent, a balm to a novice like me.
Honor was given Marmite to ride, a lively Kaimanawa (the name explains it: a little goes a long way; he was a perfect match for Honor), while I had Apache, a gentle soul who thrived without much direction. After taking us through the basics (okay, me), we were off.
Possibly I had visions of galloping, or even cantering, but once I was on the horse, reality set in, managing a gentle amble. Still, riding Apache was easier than I’d expected, and after the first few minutes, my eyes were focused more on the view anyway. This has to be one of the best ways to see Waiheke from the (almost) ground, with rural views at first, giving way to the sublime. The beauty just kept arriving; you can see why even the notoriously nit-picking Trip Advisor comments all rave about the tour. At the peak of the ridge, we stopped at a Maori pa site, with 360 degree views of the Hauraki gulf. Waiheke Horse Tours has recently been given a bronze Qualmark award, in part for the sustainability and safety of its operations — those views wouldn’t have hurt either.
We finished the tour by riding past the cottage, on to the beach before we headed back to base, Liz giving Honor a chance to pick up the pace once we were back with a canter around the ring.
We love Waiheke, and have been there dozens of times, always renting somewhere new. I could see us going back — staying at the cottage for a week, feeding the chooks, swimming in the bay, reading books all afternoon, canoodling with the horses. Of course I could. It was magic.