Rangitoto and Motutapu - April 10-11, 2009

Last weekend we had a nice long 4 day weekend for Easter. We decided to go hiking and camping on friday and saturday. Rangitoto and Motutapu are only a short ferry ride away from downtown Auckland. Rangitoto is a volcanic island that was formed about 600 yrs ago, and is now a public reserve. Motutapu is one of the oldest islands in the area and was home to Maori for many years until the eruption that formed Rangitoto. It covered much of Motutapu is ash; Motutapu is currently part of a conservation project, but also has several farms on it.
We got off the ferry at Rangitoto, and hiked up to the summit. It was a beautiful day and the views were amazing.

Next we headed off to the lava caves, originally formed from flowing lava during the eruption. It is a narrow cave about 100m long. It was pitch black and we had flashlights, although my camera flash lit it up pretty well. This was my favorite part of the day.


We had lunch on a beach along the water and then headed over to Motutapu, where our campsite was for the night. Along the way we passed through grazing fields for cows and sheep. We had some great views back towards Rangitoto.
At one point the trail went right through a herd of about 50 cows. One of the cows didn't seem too happy to let us through, staring us down and taking mini charges towards us, so we chickened out and hopped a nearby fence to bypass the herd. A few minutes later another hiker walked right through them, almost reaching out to touch the angry cow, and we felt pretty stupid. Here is the angry cow, now staring down the other hiker:
A while later we passed through a huge mob of sheep. Normally Eric jokes about how he wants to chase the sheep, but they always scatter quickly. This time though, one of them chased us, trying to come in and nip us or head butt us or something! He tried about 8 times and we were yelling and waving our arms to scare him off. It was crazy! And didn't help that the previous week we saw a movie on TV about killer sheep that have developed a taste for human flesh (only in NZ, I know!). We safely bypassed the sheep and spent the rest of the hike enjoying the views, the birds (tons of pukekos!!), and the unusual trees.
We arrived in Home Bay and set up our tent. We had carried in our tent, sleeping bags, and food. However, most of the other people camping had come over in their own boats, so they had huge tents, coolers of food and beer, tables, chairs, radios, etc. We were quite jealous. But it was a great location for camping. Here's our tent:
The next morning we packed up to hike out and catch the ferry. It started raining as soon as we had packed up our tent, so out camping neighbors took pity on us and invited us over for coffee and hot chocolate. We were very grateful. :-) More great views as we hiked out.
We enjoyed the rest of our Easter weekend, making a huge brunch including mom's french toast on Easter morning. And I did notice that holidays (so far) seem less commercialized than in the US. I couldn't find those plastic pastel colored eggs you can put candy in, or a kit to dye easter eggs! Oh the madness!
Hope everyone had a great Easter!