Rangitoto

We finally got the ferry over to Rangitoto a couple of weeks ago and took the just-right walk/hike to the top. It’s only a few miles off shore, and kind of visually dominates the harbour (as we’ve noticed before) so it was very much on the list of things we wanted to do.

The trail passes through a mix of bare scoria and lush forest. It’s amazing to imagine the early Maori standing on the beach in Auckland watching this whole thing rise out of the sea, which apparently is what happened. And when Europeans first started looking at it there were almost no trees at all, but now it’s quite forested, including the biggest pohutukawa foest anywhere.

We had lunch on the foundations of an old gun emplacement, clambered through one of the lava tube caves, and briefly toured the restored ‘bach’ or summer cabin near the ferry landing. All in all a really nice day!