Welcome to Waiheke

Welcome with me - to Waiheke, New Zealand. It's a small island about an hour by ferry outside of the country's biggest city, Auckland.

When people talk about New Zealand, when it's described in photo books or breathless travel blogs or you're looking agape at the backdrops from The Lord of the Rings, for some reason, they never talk about this place.

And that is a shame.

I've been to this island almost a dozen times by now (I even got married here, two years ago!) - and every time I arrive it's the same.

I step off the ferry, walk two steps onto land, and feel the tension I shove into my body - my shoulders, my jaw, the middle of my back - let go.

It's an island filled with a lot of birds, a surprising number of sheep, and not all that many people.

Here, on the couch I'm writing you from, I can hear no less than five different kinds of birds and feel fresh air, ocean baked, wafting through the room. In one window. Out another.

As I travel, so often I'm captivated by the dramatic, the interesting, the unusual, the bright.

But this week, listening to the Tūī and Pīwakawaka and Korimako talk the afternoon away, I'm reminded of how soul-filling places like this - quiet ones that don't shout for attention - really can be.

Have a tranquil week,

-Steven

p.s The best thing I saw all week was this beautiful story of a house, land, and the woman who saw it for what it really was.