Rangitoto Island

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Vera and I hopped onto a ferry bright and early this morning to Rangitoto Island. It is Auckland’s youngest volcano and it last erupted 600 or 800 years ago, I can’t totally remember. There is nothing on the island and no permanent residence. Back in the early 1900’s people built small beach houses called Baches on the coast of the island but in 1930 it was decided that you could no longer build on the island. A few baches remain today and have stayed within families since the 1900’s and they still use the baches as vacation homes.

We hiked up to the summit of the volcano which is at about 600 meters. It’s not a long hike but parts are quite steep and it’s really hot there because the trail and lots of the surroundings are just black volcanic rock. We went on a day that was about 18 degrees in Auckland but on the island it felt like 30 degrees. Can’t imagine what it would be like to hike it in the summer.

We did the crater rim walk and then stopped for a bit of lunch with views of a few other islands and Auckland. Walked back down part way to get to the Lava caves. You can actually walk through some of the caves right to the other side. It’s dark so we had to use a torch (flashlight haha).

Hiked back down to the bottom and caught a ferry back to Auckland. We decided to go shopping at Kathmandu which is NZ’s version of our MEC (mountain equipment coop). I bought a 2 litre camelback water bag to put in my small backpack so I have hands free water when I’m hiking. It’s so great!! I love it and I got a wicked deal on it, 50% off. I think back in Canada they cost like $60, I got mine for $30NZD 😊

Went out for dinner and ice cream and then back to the hostel to pack as i’m leaveing Auckland tomorrow!!!! YEAH!!!!

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Photos

The Hilton Hotel
Designed to look like a cruise ship

Rangitoto in the distance
Yep I climbed that!

Comments

[Nathan]

Cool!
Thanks for writing this! I'm going to do this hike tomorrow ... hope it's not too hot!