Hey! Hello from the other side of the world! Once again we’ve de-camped from winter and headed south. Way south – all the way to New Zealand! We decided to dive right in and take a little tour from our first stop in Auckland. A short ferry ride away is the island of Rangitoto. Six hundred years ago it was an active and erupting volcano – now it is a nature preserve.
It is summer here, and hot, so we decided to take a tour. When we were last in Japan we had rides in an oxcart – this time we had friendly Bob and his tractor rig.
So – you know what the thing is about riding in an open cart on a volcanic rock?
Dust. OMG the dust! And the rattling! My FitBit was convinced I had walked thousands of steps just riding along. We rode up though the forest that has slowly slowly grown up on the lava. Eventually we came to – you guessed it – stairs. ‘Cause it is never a really Sharon and Wilf adventure without stairs.
375 steps, to be exact. Leading up to the summit and a fantastic view across to the city and all around the bay.
(Okay, that’s the telephoto view, but still – pretty nice!)
It was a really nice little excursion from the city – a chance to see some nature, to see the city in context. We also brought along a little pack lunch – had our first New Zealand meat pies in a pavilion by the shore, under the very watchful eyes of a hungry sea gull..
Where I'm At 