An NZ Odyssey by Lisa & Keegan

Rangitoto Island is a tourist trap. Straight up. Its a natural area, less than a half hour by ferry from Auckland, has some good views, is pretty unique with its volcanos and whatnot, and has a ton of easy treks. We went early, picked a weekday, and thought that for the most part, we would beat the crowds to the top, as the ferry only had a a couple groups of hikin boot totin backpackers. Welp, turns out a local school group consisting of 150 kids and their overwhelmed supervisors, had the same train of thought.

Lisa and I (Keegan) picked a trail fairly direct 3km trail from the boat up the 260m high volcano. And I would like to say it was relaxing, and we enjoyed the sun and the foreign terrain.. but we were not going to let those children, all 150 of them beat us to the top. Nah uh. Not all of them were racing us I guess. We overheard one 10 year old say "Why are we doing this? the only reason we are doing this is just so we can eat lunch at the top".

We won the race. and shared the summit with about ten selfie-taking Germans. It was rather peaceful. Really cool views of the harbour, you could see the hilly Cormandel region to the south, amd the middle part of the volcano was super green and overgrown.

We were then chased off the summit by the screaming and shouting of those snotty-nosed children, but quickly found some jungly lava flows that we could walk through (maybe 20 meters long so bring a headlamp).

We shared the ferry home with the school group. They were exhausted and quiet. It was wonderful.Read more