It’s currently 6:22 am here, 12:22 pm yesterday for folks back home. Wowsers. The hike yesterday was crazy, but great. No pics from it since my phone died. You’ll have to wait till I get my camera pics uploaded.

Rangitoto was a 25 minute calm ferry ride from the mainland. It looked for the world like you were pulling up to jurassic park, complete with some what I assume was Maori inspired gateway.  We casually strolled to the base of the various trails and picked the one that was the short route to the summit. Only 1 hour? Bah! That’s probably a 30 minute one for us! We were so wrong.

Old lava fields reflected the heat as we scrambled up the path. Our water bottle was soon emptied. There were lots of desert like plants everywhere, hard leaves and stems. We did make it to the top in an hour, but it was hard won with lots of stops in the few spots of shade.

The view from the top was incredible. Wide, panoramic views of the city, and other islands, and ocean dotted with white sails. Lovely. I’m glad we took pictures, because at the time, all I could think of was how hot and tired I was.

On the way up (and down) we passed a group standing around a lady who had turned her ankle quite badly. After asking if we could help, we headed on our way being even more cautious, since we had jelly legs and no wish to start our trip in a cast. About 2/3 the way down, we passed 2 people who had gone for help. All they had was a pillow, and a wooden wheel barrow with one wheel. Apparently that was the only other wheeled vehicle on the island and they were going to try to use it to get the lady down. We still don’t know how they got her down, but we did see several helicopters circling the top. Hope the got here before the last ferry left. …

Sorry for the wordy post this morning. Guess a photo really would have been worth the 1,000 words. Today we leave Auckland to go on the Black Abyss tour in the glow worm caves. Hope to get pictures! Til then.