Rangitoto Island Adventure

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I woke up at 08:25 but stayed in bed reading until about 08:50ish. I had a shower and got dressed, then had two pieces of toast with nutella for breakfast.

At 11:20ish, Billy and I left the house to go to Devonport. We bought sandwiches and drinks from a bakery. We met Ranee at the ferry port and had to wait about 10 minutes to get the ferry across to Rangitoto Island. We found out on board that we couldn't buy tickets on the boat as we had a voucher for money off. The crew said that we would have to go all the way to Auckland City to pay for all of the tickets on the way back, but they also said that they would then pay for the ferry from Auckland City to Devonport. We were also told on the ferry that we were going to have to go into Islington Bay Wharf as the weather was too rough to go into Rangitoto Wharf.

When we got onto the island, we had to walk up a small hill to the trailer that was waiting to take us around the island on a guided tour. We got on the trailer and our guide, Bob, set off on the tour. We were taken to the base of the steps up to the summit of the volcano. We climbed all 365 steps to the summit and when we got up there, we took in the view and ate our sandwiches. We then walked down all of the steps again to get back to the trailer for 14:15. We were taken on a tour of the rest of the island which included lava fields and Rangitoto Wharf (where there was an old tidal swimming pool).

We got the last ferry back to the mainland at 15:30 and made a detour to Auckland City to pay for our tickets. We then got the ferry back to Devonport and then headed back to the house.

When we got back to the house, Ellen was still out and Ranjit's so we had chicken wraps for dinner - they were delicious! Mark then came round and dropped Ellen off.

On the news there was a 'breaking news' story that flashed up to say that a prisoner at Paremoremo Prison had taken another prisoner hostage. Billy (who is a prison officer at the prison) sat there and said "that will be either Bell (triple-murderer) or Baker (murdered a 17 year old boy in a prison van)." Sure enough, about half an hour later another newsflash came up to say that it was indeed George Charlie Baker that had taken another prisoner hostage. The hostage situation lasted 11 hours and ended when he gave the hostage up unharmed.

Some facts I learnt today

• There are over 80kms of roads on Rangitoto Island all built by prisoners
  
• There are over 200 species of plant on Rangitoto Island
  
• The footprints of Maoris were found in the lava flows on Rangitoto Island
  
• The eruption of Krakatoa killed 38 Europeans over 16,000 Indonesians
  
• Krakatoa erupted on 27th August 1883
  
• The eruption of Krakatoa made the sky in England red for five years!
  

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