28th October 2009
The weather was looking much better today so we decided to make the most of it and get up early and catch the first ferry across to Rangitoto Island. Rangitoto sits just off the Auckland coast and is a unique volcanic island with a fascinating landsacpe of rugged lava crops, native bush and sandy coves. These days there is no permanent population living on the island and it is a public nature reserve.
Once you get off the ferry there a number of different walks you can do - we chose to head for the summit, which took about an hour to climb up to. It was well worth it. The weather was pretty good today and the views from up here were stunning, looking right over Auckland and all across the Bay area.
On the descent we took a detour to some lava caves. These are narrow caves that were originally formed by flowing lava. It was pretty dark in here - good job we’d brought our head torches!
From here we made our way back down to the wharf we had a twenty minute or so wait for the ferry which was a perfect opportunity to eat the picnic lunch we’d brought with us.
Back in Auckland, we started the 20 minute walk back to the hostel, calling in at a few car hire firms to get some quotes for hiring a car later this week. We settled on one, so have that all booked to pick up on Friday to head north.