Living on Waiheke Island with Kids?
 

Hello!



My husband and I are immigrating to New Zealand with our four school-aged children, and we’re hoping to make Waiheke Island our home. Our plan would be for our two older daughters to attend a private school in Auckland, while our younger sons go to the local primary school on Waiheke.



I’m wondering if anyone has experience with children commuting from Waiheke to Auckland for school. Is that a realistic or feasible option? The commute time itself isn’t a big concern for us — we currently travel about an hour each way to school — but I’m more curious about the safety, logistics on the Auckland side, and whether there are other families or students who already do this.



Any advice, insight, or firsthand experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you so much!

— Devon

Re: Living on Waiheke Island with Kids?
 

Kia ora Devon84, welcome to BE.
The NZ forum has become a little quiet these days as a number of us have headed back to the UK or moved on to Australia.
I can't help you with your question as we don't have children but we did use to live in Auckland fo 16+ years until 2023.
What has made you decide on Waiheke as the location to live? It's beautiful and has a reasonable ferry service to the CBD. We lived up on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula and the OH used to get the ferry into the CBD most days. The ferry became quite unreliable over the years, lots of breakdowns and latterly, staffing issues.
The Waiheke ferries tend to be more reliable than the Gulf Harbour ferry. However, there have been issues with company running them over the past few years. Just something to look into and be aware of.
Obviously, if the weather is very bad then ferries are cancelled. There has been a noticeable change in weather patterns over the past decade. We definitely noticed an increase in wind speed over the years. Strong winds happening more frequently.
It is a lovely place and of course, there's a few vineyards to visit!
I used to work at Auckland City Hospital and we did have women in labour helicoptered over in bad weather, if the ferries had been cancelled.
You'd need a contingency plan in place for your daughters, should they not be able to return home from school. Which school do you have in mind?

I'm presuming that you have your visas in place for the move.
Good luck.