NZ Visual Diary - entry 356

Rangitoto Island

Almost seven years of living in New Zealand and I had neither stepped foot on Rangitoto Island nor ascended its central volcanic cone. It was time.

Two ageing men - a best mate and I - took to ferry from Auckland Harbour, past the seaside suburb of Devonport and across the Rangitoto Channel, to enjoy a splendid, if not also challenging, climb on an equally gorgeous day.

The youngest but largest of Auckland’s multitudinous volcanoes within its volcanic field, Rangitoto’s most recent eruption was about 600 years ago. The evidence of that last (and one hopes final) eruption is startling in its abundant and stark design: volcanic rock, the afterbirth of molten lava streams, pock the island’s landscape. As if to compensate for its geologic scars, Rangitoto Island is also home to the largest forest of pōhutukawa trees in the world. The island is both verdant and alien.

My photograph illustrates that duality of lush sylvan paradise and obdurate expanses of basalt slab, unlikely but comfortable bedfellows.