Monday, June 05, 2006
Chris's Birthday! An interesting thing happened today. A national holiday was declared in NZ so that Chris could share his birthday with the Queen (or something like that). We had a fun day hiking up Rangitoto - a volcanic island in Auckland harbour.
Rangitoto is Auckland's newest volcano, formed out of the ocean about 600 years ago. There are about 50 volcanic cones in the Auckland area, with a new one sprouting every 1,000 years or so. Each volcano erupts only once.
A silvereye bird greated us at the summit. You can see our house from the summit. Click on the photo to enlarge and see if you can spot it.
We visited the lava caves on the way down.
The ferry to Rangitoto gives very nice views of downtown Auckland (and the container yard). Note the blue sky - the weather forecast was actually for rain (all weekend). We've found that the best way to get a weather forecast in NZ is just to look out the window in the morning. Well, that's a good 15 minute forecast anyways.
Yum! Cake time.
Rangitoto is Auckland's newest volcano, formed out of the ocean about 600 years ago. There are about 50 volcanic cones in the Auckland area, with a new one sprouting every 1,000 years or so. Each volcano erupts only once.
A silvereye bird greated us at the summit. You can see our house from the summit. Click on the photo to enlarge and see if you can spot it.
We visited the lava caves on the way down.
The ferry to Rangitoto gives very nice views of downtown Auckland (and the container yard). Note the blue sky - the weather forecast was actually for rain (all weekend). We've found that the best way to get a weather forecast in NZ is just to look out the window in the morning. Well, that's a good 15 minute forecast anyways.
Yum! Cake time.
# posted by Susan @ 10:38 PM 
