Climb Every Volcano Search High and Low

Rangitoto looms majestically over Auckland's harbor. With a symmetrical shield cone, Rangitoto looks like one would think that a volcano should look like; almost like something out of a school science fair. Since we see the volcano just about everyday, our curiosity about what the island looks like close-up kept growing stronger. We finally could stand it no longer, so we hopped on a ferry and made our way across the harbor.

Rangitoto is only about 600 years old. This means people were in New Zealand to witness its creation, and it is a part of The Maori oral history. There is also footprints on the neighboring island that date back to creation of Rangitoto.

The shoreline of the island consists of old lava flows. In many areas, it looks like the flows just cooled.

Rangitoto rises to an altitude of 850 feet. The trek up the mountain is about 1.5 miles. Here is Rachel powering up the trail.

In many areas, the elements and plants have not had time to break up the volcanic rock.

The view is fantastic.


We didn't make it to the top because we decided to use our dwindling time to explore caves. The caves were created by the lava flows.

As we said goodbye, we knew more about volcanoes and had climbed one more of Auckland's 50 or so volcanic cones.