I started my morning with a flat white, which is the favorite New Zealand coffee drink. It is espresso with a little bit of velvety, micofoamed milk. I'm a convert!
With my flat white in hand, Rory and I boarded the ferry to Rangitoto, an uninhabited volcanic island in the bay. Rangitoto was the last of 50 volcanos in the Auckland volcano field, but it hasn't been active in about 550 years.After a 25 minute ferry ride, we disembarked and started up the steepest, most direct route to the summit. It was very cool to hike through the lava fields. Rangitoto hasn't been active in many years, so we wondered why so many vegetation grew up in some places, but none in others.
We took a detour to the lava caves on our way up. They were very cool, but a little scary because it was pitch dark inside. We were trying to navigate using just Rory's phone as light, and there was both rough footing and a low ceiling!
The view from the summit was amazing. We could see the city and the entire gulf. I just couldn't stop taking pictures!
We walked all the way around the crater and then took the longer way down and stopped halfway for a picnic on the beach. I was hot from all the hiking, so I couldn't resist taking a long swim. The ocean was perfect!
In all we ended up covering more than 10 miles on Rangitoto, including a lot of hills, so we were very happy to get back on the ferry and enjoy the cool breeze on the way back. We are quite sunburned too, but we will certainly take that over 20 and snowy!
You are getting lots of walking in! Make sure to rest before the race, right? Ha ha. Was the hike up on dirt or was a lot of it that molten lava stuff?
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