Rangitoto Island is a 15 min ferry ride across Auckland Harbour. It is a volcanic island with rugged lava crops, lush native bush and sandy coves. It erupted around 600 years ago and is home to NZ's largest Pohutakawa (their national flower) forest. It has no permanent population, but back in the early 20th century there was a small community living in "baches" (what us Ozzies call beach shacks) scattered along the shore. New buildings were banned in 1937 and only a few remain, and now only the descendants of the original owners are allowed to use them, they can not be sold or rented out.
A typical Bach
Rangitoto literally means "bloody sky" in Maori, but it is derived from the phrase "Te Rangi i totongia a Tamatekapua" - the day the blood of tamatekapua was shed, a reference to the injury of a chief during a battle fought on the island. There are 11 self guided walks around the island, but because we had 4 kids and 1 baby in a pram we took the easy option and booked a guided tour around the island on a 4WD road train. However, this stopped at the base of the summit and then there were 300 steps to climb to get to the summit.
We did manage a 30 min self guided walk, through the thick bush, luckily little Lukas was asleep in the pouch.
This was a constant sight through out the tour, a lava flow through the bush
Our tour vehicle
The information sheet on how the volcano formed and what it used to look like all those years ago.
The view into the crater.
Given we had fantastic weather on the way over we were all looking forward to the walk around the crater top, however 5 mins into the tour the heavens opened up and we were drenched. "Didn't matter" I said, "this is our one and only chance so we will do it anyway". And do it we did - regardless of there being no view to be had, you couldn't even see 10m in front of you let alone down into the crater or the usual spectacular 360 degree views of Auckland and Hauraki Gulf Islands (or so the brochures tell us). Oh well can't have everything.
The view of Ranigtoto on the way over.
The view whilst we were there.
The Rangitoto Island wharf on departure.
The ferry ride home was shocking in the bad weather and to make things worse, we were all so busy chatting away we did not take any notice of where the ferry stopped and we got off at the wrong place, we were in Davenport not the city. After a quick panic we managed to run back to the ferry, have it reverse back to collect us and then head off to our drop off point.
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