Last Saturday I took a boat to an island and climbed a volcanoe. Not something you hear everyday I would guess?
Peculiar things happen in the land down under and I’m loving it more and more each adventure I take. Rangitoto island is an island off the shore of Auckland. A friend from Denmark and I hopped on the ferry around 12:30 pm and rode thirty minutes through the beautiful harbor and into the ocean toward a large volcanic rock to take a stroll for the rest of our day.
Upon arrival I saw nothing but a dock, some public restrooms, and a vast land piled high with volcanic rocks, dirt, and heaps of greenery in trees, grass, and shrubs. We were ready for our hike!
All in all I suppose we walked around 10 km completing a three hour hike around the island and into the summit and lava caves hidden within, to arrive back at the dock to depart to Auckland city central on the last ferry out from the island that day. They were very clear that if you missed this 4:30 pm ferry out, it would be highly difficult and highly expensive to make your own way back to the city. Rangitoto is literally all volcano…and all rock. There were a few empty huts that we noticed along the trail probably there for the few people who wish to sleep on the island? But in all honesty, a nice day hike through the wilderness of Ringitoto was quite enough for me. The hike was mainly guided by a large trail of dried lava rocks. We chose to take the trail down to the summit and caves because we felt like adventurers that day. As we began down that detour we noticed that the trail sort of disappeared and suddenly we were almost fending for ourselves in the wilderness with the help of pure instinct for direction. Climbing up and down rooted tree branches and in and around the hanging leaves. It was somewhat of a cold day but I was sweating! Especially with a nicely filled backpack of water bottles, carrots, apples, and jumpers, we were getting a nice workout for the day.
The lava caves were pretty cool, although a bit anti-climatic I must say. Dried lava just doesn’t have as much of the pizazz as the lava we pretend exists under our toes at the playground as we jump from monkey bar to monkey bar. Nevertheless, I find any dark cave you can crawl into quite fun!
As the final ferry departure time approached we decided not to push our luck and began to head back early from our trek. I picked up a lava rock to take with me for a keepsake. Kinnie, my Danish friend, informed me that there might be large fees for that kind of thing but I did not see any signs indicating anything of the sort so I took the chance for my lovely rock keepsake 🙂
Ringitoto Island was glorious. Crazy to think it could have erupted at any moment we were stepping along it that day. Thank god it didn’t.
Joyful Thinking 