The Life of a Lost Tramp

Normally, calling someone a tramp might be considered slightly offensive or kind of weird considering the fact that that word hasn't really been used in the english language since the forties. Most people don't actually know what it means anyway (it used to refer to a homeless person). If you find yourself in New Zealand though, don't be offended or confused if someone invites you to go tramping with them; they aren't asking if you want to be a hobo. Over here, 'tramping' is the same as our american hiking. With slightly better scenery. Well, with ridiculously amazing scenery not at all comparable to anything you might see in the states.

But I'm not trying to give a vocabulary lesson in old english here.

I had my first real experience in tramping last weekend when I and about seven other kids when we decided to take the ferry over to Rangitoto Island, a small volcanic island right off of the coast of Auckland and a convenient twenty-five minute ferry ride from the city. It ended up being a pretty bold decision to go; we met on the ground floor of our dorm pretty disgustingly early for a sunday morning. Activities of the night before didn't ease the wake up. Especially not the 2-for-1 shots.
We managed to leave almost on time, which is usually defined by being less than twenty minutes late from our previously decided time of departure, and after barely making it on the 10:30 ferry, we pulled into a bay in Rangitoto. It was cloudy but had stopped raining since we left the city, and armed with sneakers, a map someone grabbed out of the tourist brochure pile, and probably not enough water, we started walking. The map looked a little like a fourth grader had made it and seemed to be missing a few key paths that we ended up going by during the first part of our walk, but we figured out where our ferry had just come in, at a point marked in the south of the island, and kept in mind where some of the main paths went so we stashed it, content with Louis-and-Clarking our way around the island instead.
The trails were parked with painted signs adorned with little arrows to lead trampers on the right path and an estimate of how long it would take to get to any given destination.

Our Arrival Point on Rangtitoto

We had our hearts set on going to the summit first, mostly because it sounded cool and there were bound to be some crazy photo ops. The handy dandy navigational signs informed us that the hike would take 40 minutes from where we were; not bad. A light drizzle and the cloud cover kept us cool as we walked uphill for what seemed like a very long time, and the walk was made slightly more tedious by the fact that the road we were following was nothing special, and went not through forest or mountains at all but was very man-made looking and flanked on either side by plain black crumbling rock. We were all less than impressed, especially after what we had seen during our Bay of Islands trip, but the path became prettier and soon we were making our way into a much more natural looking area.

Either the sign-writer was a horrible estimator of time or the estimates were made by an olympic athlete, because after about an hour we were still not at the summit. We came to a fork in the road, with one path leading us ever uphill on the same type of man-made road, and the other path that grew thinner and lead into more dense wooded area, and, according to the signs, led to lava caves. Deciding it was about time for a change of pace, (literally, we were practically running up the hill at that point) and because 'lava caves' sounded badass, we took the road seemingly-less-travelled. Very Frost of us, I know. It turned out to be a nice break, because the sun had started to force its way through the clouds and we were all getting a little overheated, and the small path we were now following was cool and covered by the canopy of trees overhead. And it smelled different. None of us could really explain it, but the air seemed fresher and cleaner in that little path, as cliché as that may sound.

The start of the new trail

We walked up slippery natural staircases formed by tree roots and rocks, until we reached a point in the trail where we assumed the lava caves were located, because there was a steep drop to one side. To my dismay, there weren't any giant craters in the ground with rivers of bubbling boiling liquid magma, but on descending to the side of the trail we saw some of the small caves. At first glance they looked simply like indentations into the earthen wall, as if a giant hand had started to hollow out a space into the side. When we came closer, we realized that you could squeeze through and continue underground through the tunnel, which, after becoming smaller then widened into standing height. It was a short ways through the pitch black but we still had trouble making it through without slipping and sliding on the rocks and roots we couldn't see, the experience was definitely worth it though.

The entry

The light at the end of the tunnel

Inside wall of the cave

After our short caving trip, we continued on to the summit, stopping in a little clearing for lunch where sections of logs were strewn about to be used as makeshift seats.

Finally, we made it to the top, where we were rewarded for our efforts with an amazing view:

And then began our long walk back to the ferry dock, which turned out to be longer than we expected. Thanks to a bad map and a group mentality of assuming we always knew where we were going, we got lost. And not just a little lost. Lost an hour and a half walk away in the opposite direction of where we needed to go. Which normally wouldn't be an issue, except for the fact that the last ferry back to Auckland left at 5pm and it was 3:30 by the time we arrived at the wrong end of the island. So, exhausted as we were, we hauled ass back to the correct side of the island, making it back with time to spare. We lied down on the sand near the ferry dock and finally relaxed.

Our feet were aching and our legs were sore but by that time the sun had come out and it ended up being a beautiful day as we took the ferry back home.