Rangitoto and Meat Pie

On Saturday Laura and I caught the 7:30am ferry out of the Auckland Harbor and hiked up and around Rangitoto, New Zealand’s largest and youngest volcano.  Here is a map of the island and the trails.  We walked every trail except the one to bolder bay and we never crossed onto Montutapu!  It was a lot of walking and I am now very sore but it was worth it! 

Rangitoto erupted as recently at 600 years ago and was probably active for several years before settling down.  Maori people lived on Motutapu (Rangitoto is attached to Motutapu) at the time of the eruptions and probably witnessed it.  

When we got to Rangitoto we started walking around the trails at the base because it was very cloudy, or dusty as lots of people here say, and we knew there wouldn’t be much of a view at the top.  There were tons of cool looking trees and a lot of great views of Auckland.  We walked along the costal road with two girls we met on the ferry.  They were both from Germany and were in New Zealand for 6 and 9 months as nannies.

 Then as it started to clear up we headed towards the summit.  The walk was through the forest and stopped at some great lookout points.  When we got to the top we spent some time looking at the almost perfect crater.  We went several more lookouts and then we headed to the highest point.  Here are some of the pictures that we took.  There were amazing views in all directions and by the time we got up there it was pretty clear.  We could see to Motutapu, which surprisingly at least to me (considering Rangitoto is all trees) looked as if it was almost all grass.   

 

On the very top of Rangitoto there was an old lookout station from WWII, Rangitoto was used as a lookout because since it is so tall it is possible to look in all directions for invaders.  There were several old buildings and remnants from WWII allover the island. 

After that we walked to the Lava Caves.  Lava caves are formed when the lava that is flowing on top cools and hardens while the lava below is still moving.  This process forms something like a tube, in my travel book it told me that if you want to see the caves you need to bring a torch to the island.  Well I didn’t understand what a torch was and couldn’t imagine bringing a stick with fire (that was all I could think of).  So we didn’t have a flashlight, which is what torch meant, but fortunately a nice man who was eating lunch with his son let us barrow theirs. 

We did some more walking after the Lave Caves, went to the Controlled Mine Base and then walked back to the wharf on the costal trail.  We made it back in plenty of time for the last ferry at 5pm so we were not stranded on the island, the captain says that he leaves people all the time. 

On the boat we happened to be sitting behind a man who was wearing a Super Bowl Ring.  He saw Laura’s shirt (it said Wisconsin on it) and asked if we were Packer fans.  Laura said yes and he told us that was too bad.  Anyway long story short he played for the 49ers from 1991-1995 and was on the team when they won.  I tried to catch his name when he introduced himself to the group of people from New Zealand, but missed it. 

We talked to him and his son for quite a while and they asked us if we had eaten meat pie since we had been in New Zealand.  Neither of us had and he was so disappointed that he told us that it is what we needed to have for dinner.  He said that it was one of his favorite foods and had been eating it at multiple places since his family arrived, he said most of them had been average but one shop was wonderful.  He tried to give us directions but couldn’t remember what the shop was by or what street it was on, so once we reached to harbor he walked us to it.  We had lamb curry meat pie for dinner at a little shop in an ally and it was excellent.