The effect is known as a fata morgana, and you see it on clear, hot, still mornings as you make the crossing from downtown Auckland. Mornings like this, when Waiheke Island hovers above the horizon—a floating world cocooned in its own dream. As you get closer, the mirage dwindles, subsides, and finally dissolves into the sea. Meteorologists might deconstruct this miracle with talk of temperature inversions, but they can’t undo a niggling suspicion that nothing about this Hauraki Gulf island is quite as it seems.

Spray from the ferry as it rips through the Motuihe Channel adds a salty tang to the air, and the water frothing around the twin hull looks cool and inviting. Quickcat, one of the regular commuter vessels on this run, throttles back and eases between Matiatia’s rocky heads into a harbour flanked by grass-carpeted hills where a few houses play join-the-dots on the ridgeline. She pirouettes with cumbersome grace and ties up to the pier.

I amble past the reception committee—local tourism vendors holding up placards: “Oneroa Lodge welcomes Sloane”, “Palm Beach Resort for Prudential”, “The Rudd family”. One of the placard-bearers is singled out by a tanned face to my right: “You protesting, bro?”

Laconic humour shimmers just under the surface when you strike up a conversation with a Waiheke Islander. It’s that conspiratorial nod or wink, the lingua franca of escapees from the Big Smoke. In a populace as diverse as Waiheke’s, dry wit acts as social cement.

Waihekeans are a curious blend. Although there are few of the Polynesian and Asian faces of greater Auckland, exotic imports—especially from Western Europe and the Americas—abound. Yet the island’s diversity runs deeper than places of origin. Boatloads of islanders commute to Auckland for work, but plenty eke out a living without crossing the gulf: infrastructure people, horticulturists, artisans, retailers and tradespeople, mixing it up with a diehard core of alternative lifestylers, artists and semi-retired activists. Seasonal tides from the mainland also deliver waves of the walking wounded and media shy: CEOs, celebrities, ex-celebrities, burnt-out substance abusers, drop-outs and half-way-housers.

This mixture breaks along other fault lines, too. There’s old Waiheke and new Waiheke—locals who trace their lineage through one or two generations versus those who carry an unused ferry ticket. There are full-timers, psychically synchronised to the island’s seasonal rhythms, and weekenders who occupy their boltholes only when the sun shines.

I fit into the unused ticket brigade. Hailing from southern latitudes and geographically challenged, I knew little about this gulf island before I settled on it. My shift from the mainland in the mid-90s was born more out of dissatisfaction with the gridlocked city than any dream of islands. Not knowing what to expect, I was surprised by what I found. It can be summed up in a single word: diversity.

It can be seen in the homes that spill across the hills. Some are palaces overlooking private vineyards; others are ad hoc baches with few comforts. A smattering have been built to complement the eccentricities of their owners, with capricious turrets and quirky extrusions. Others maximise views or beach access. But the largest group by far are dwellings that have been, or are being, tweaked. Do-ups.

What were once Spartan fibrolite constructions meant as holiday escapes have been transformed into comfortable residences painted in colours with gentrified names such as “Latte” and “Cappuccino”.

Diverse circumstances, diverse means, diverse aspirations—diversity is one of Waiheke’s grand themes. Yet, for all their differences, islanders share a common trait. They are, all of them, refugees. People who have eschewed the fast-food instant-gratification shopping nirvana that glitters on the horizon for the sound of an ocean sucking on shells, breaking on sand.

In Umberto Eco’s novel The Island of the Day Before, a 17th century Italian nobleman finds himself aboard an abandoned ship in the Pacific. The vessel is anchored near an island of stunning beauty that lies across the international dateline. The nobleman, trapped because he cannot swim, believes that if he can somehow get to this island he will have gone backwards in time and can thus unravel his misfortunes. A crazy non sequitur, but the thought that utopia is present in the past is the thought that resonates.

Waiheke is New Zealand as it was before the shopping plazas and multiplex cinemas. Goods and foodstuffs are proudly local, handcrafted by Waiheke artisans; houses are set on quintessential quarter-acre sections; there are no traffic lights, neon signs or billboards. Waiheke is mythic New Zealand, Godzone, the island of the day before—straddling a cultural dateline, in full view of the Sky Tower.