Rangitoto Island

I had been thinking of going to Rangitoto Island and doing a hiking in there for awhile but I was lacking company. Finally, I got someone to join me, English couple from my hostel. Rangitoto is about 20min ferry ride from Auckland Harbour. I had done a brief visit to the island earlier when I did Auckland Harbour Cruise but that time I stayed only about 10mins on the island. This time it was gonna be longer visit and we were gonna hike up to the summit of this old volcano.

We took a good decision turning immediately to coastal route around the island instead of heading straight for the steep climb to the summit. By this choice we were the only ones on that particular track. At the beginning the track was nice and flat with some nice scenery.

After about 1,5hrs it was time to turn and head towards the summit. By choosing this route we didn't have that steep climb, althou even on this one you started to sweat a bit, especially when the sun started to shine from cloudless sky. All the way up to this point it had been slight overcast so temperature wasn't so bad but reckon this was one those Murphy's Law's.. Once we got the last bit and onto to the boardwalk we got an amazing views towards next island, Motutapu. Just a few more step and we were on the summit. This took us about 3hrs all in all to get to the top and what a views..

We had a brief lunch at the top and then it was time to start heading back to the pier where we would catch our ferry back to city. On the way down we did a small detour to lava caves nearby and even managed to crawl thru one of them. This was another great day in Auckland and the weather was pretty much perfect for  hiking. Can't wait till I start my road trip and get to do some hiking in other areas of North Island.