RANGITOTO !

The ground is menacing. Lava, in waves frozen in mid-air only moments ago, claws at the soles of your shoes and threatens to shred your knees if you place a foot wrong. The surface is so uneven that progress is extraordinarily difficult, and I managed to twist my ankle last year.
There are channels like petrified streams which provide a pathway among the huge plates of broken lava and bouldery rubble.
Out of the shade of bush, it’s as hot as a furnace because the black rock absorbs and radiates enough heat to melt Antarctica.
It’s as hostile a spot as you could find anywhere in New Zealand.



Sophia and Greg braved ascending Rangitoto today, on a College trip. The weather was glorious and off they went on a coach filled with excited pupils...
Rangitoto is the largest and youngest volcano of the 48 volcanoes in the Auckland Volcanic Field and I did the same trip, last year with my tutor group.
If you stand on the top of Rangitoto Island, you get spectacular views of Kawau Island on the north and Great Barrier and Little Barrier on the north-east. The view is the main reason tourists venture there.
So, the Fullers Ferry loaded up with 170 Year 9s and their teachers, and arrived loudly at the bottom. Their target was the crater at the summit where they were having lunch.



It's not much of a path to the top, as you can see. It's volcanic boulders to clamber over and relentlessly uphill, but the students scamper up and leave the staff behind!! Lots of scoria and big rocks, for the boys.



About halfway up they all stop and have a snack, water and visit the lava caves. There are seven of these on this island. Sophia went off armed with a torch. She tells me it was dark and got narrower as you went in, like a hollow tube. She managed to bang her head on a stalagtite of course. Injured student!!



Rangitoto Island still contains remnants of WW II sites which sheltered the U.S. troops or mines. The old observation post is on the top where they all stop to have lunch.
The students get the lectures as they go along about how, with little warning, Rangitoto was formed through violent eruptions about 600 years ago.
At the time Maori were living nearby on Motutapu Island and the early stages of the eruption would have been excessively violent, due to steam explosions where the molten rock came into contact with the shallow seawater.



Rangitoto produced a volume of lava equalling that of all the previous Auckland eruptions combined...it must have been frighteningly spectacular!!
When the eruptions finally ceased, lava in the base of the cone cooled and shrank. As a result, the entire top of the mountain subsided by 10 to 20 metres leaving a moat-like ring around the summit. These are the small mounds either side of the central cone that gives Rangitoto its nearly symmetrical profile. It's a common postcard profile and almost everywhere you go in Auckland you can see it.




Rangitoto has no soil and yet there are 200 species of native trees and flowering plants, more than 40 kinds of fern, and several species of orchids which grow on the island. You'll remember from the last blog, that it has the largest collection of pohutukawa trees too.



The view from the top is great, and you can sit and catch your breath. remember there are no cafes or toilets here - bring everything you need!










Here is Sophia at the top..still smiling!
The volcano is not expected to become active again...