Getting out Butts in Gear in Auckland

We finally decided to get off our butts and do some exploring. The sun peeked out in the morning so that was promising.

We took the first ferry out to Rangitoto Island, the youngest volcanic island in the vicinity. We hiked the beaten path to the top and back down with a slight detour to check out the lava caves.

The island was neat in that vegetation managed to bloom out of volcanic black rocks that still seemed very freshly deposited.

The views were nice and we were surprised to see that NZ actually had similar turquoise blue shallows as in French Polynesia. We had a quick lunch of BBQ pork buns and granola bars at the look out. Kids on field trips swarmed at the top.

You can actually see the crater of the volcano and do the crater walk around it. It is now filled in with vegetation and supposedly dormant, but the crater is still very distinct.

The lava caves were an interesting diversion. Trails lead to several caves that can be explored and traversed, especially if one was willing to get a little dirty. Shannon stayed outside and waited for me.

We made it back for the 12:45pm ferry back to Auckland, to hike up some other dormant volcanoes. We took the train from Bristomart to Mt. Eden and walked up to the top for a view around the city. Supposedly, there are some 50 volcano craters that can be found in Auckland to the trained eye. Twenty might be identified by the untrained eye.

We walked around the crater of Mt Eden, the bottom of the crater supposedly sacred. At the top was another loud field trip, but we enjoyed the views nonetheless of the CBD across to One Tree Hill.

The train took us back downtown and we changed at our hotel before going out to the SkyTower up the block. Having seen Auckland from two different peaks already, we figured we'd see it from the top of the tower.

We made a dinner reservation for their buffet at 8pm. In the meantime, we grabbed some brochures from the iSite tourism desk around the corner and went up to the observation deck to watch the sunset.

The view was pretty much what you'd expect, and pretty incredible. Auckland is nice in that it has a beautiful harbor and a real sailing community. Its nickname is "The City of Sails" after all. We saw a fleet of sailboats practicing around a course, the packed marinas, Rangitoto and all the peaks all around the tower.

There were glass sections of the floor which were scary enough that Shannon only stepped on one once.

Dinner was a real treat. Tons of seafood including scallops, several different fish, mussels, clams and delicious oysters. Then they also had lamb ribs, chicken drumsticks, Coca Cola honey glazed ham, and a nice dessert table.

Unfortunately, at two in the morning, I had to clear out my GI tract from both ends, but felt better shortly thereafter. It was still worth it.