Walking around our first volcano crater

Today we had a hefty drive ahead of us. We decided to not really visit Auckland just because we couldn't deal with it in a campervan. We plan to come back and visit in summer when we are just in our little car. However saying this you have to drive through the city to get to Northland because the land is so narrow and all highways seem to pass through the city. We left our campsite behind and headed back to the highway to venture north. Nick had found one place we could visit on our route to stretch our legs and break up the journey a bit. We did have to navigate the city a little bit to get there but it wasn't too daunting with Google maps. Our pit stop was at Mount Eden, one of 24 dormant volcanoes dotted around the city. I found it quite hard to comprehend that we were in the most populated city in New Zealand standing on the edge of a volcano crater! An actual volcano! You really do hope they are correct that they are all dormant. You use to be able to drive all the way up to the top of the volcano but they've now closed the road because it was getting over used. This does mean the track to walk up is a nice smooth road winding up to the top which is rather pleasant. It's a pretty easy continual ascent that isn't too steep and it only took about 15 minutes to get to the top. At the summit you are rewarded to the most amazing views of the city with the Sky Tower dominating the horizon. With the crater in the foreground as well it's a pretty amazing picture. They also had a reference sign that showed you where all the major buildings were but also reminded us how far from home we are here. Luckily you are not allowed to walk in the crater because it's unstable which I was so pleased with because this means it's covered in this perfect unspoilt green grass layer and also no one is really in the way of your photos which is always nice. There's been a lot of times where we've stood waiting at places for people to move to get a good photo. Nick loves it. From the top we could also see a couple of the other volcanos and it's so weird to see an area completely covered in buildings but with these random green volcano mounds sticking up between the concrete. After taking in the view one last time we descended back down to the van and got back on the road. We decided to take the opportunity to visit a Pak'n'save while we were in a city that had one. This resulted in a 2 hour navigation of the city to visit 4 different supermarkets to find all the usual bits and bobs we buy. It wasn't really the quick stop we had imagined it to be. Eventually we were stocked up on food and waved goodbye to Auckland and began driving up into Northland to the first freedom camping spot we could find. We're in a carpark in a port which we arrived to after it was dark so we have no clue really what it looks like but that doesn't matter when it's free.Read more