24 December 2024 (written 12:49 pm Christmas Day)

Breakfast for me was a freeze-dried Back Country Cuisine “Supreme Porridge” (which has apple apricot) with some sunflower seeds and cranberries thrown in. Which I find really tasty. I also had a caramel yoghurt that we’d bought last night. Pen had yoghurt. Guess I’m more of a guts.

When we checked out of the room, we left most of our bags in the left luggage room. Most we were planning on collecting before we started heading down to the port, but Pen’s big suitcase we were leaving there until we check back in again on Friday.

We went to the Woolworths supermarket, which wasn’t as manic as I’d been expecting, and stocked up on some fresh fruit and other consumables that weren’t likely to last as long. Then I checked my shopping list that I’d created the last time I was on Rangitoto, along with some items I’d been unable to get at the supermarket.

Leaving Pen bear and penguin sitting and scrolling through her phone, I dashed into the Warehouse in Elliot Street. There, I wasn’t able to score everything I wanted, but what I was pleased to find was a four pack of gas cylinders. Over the past few years (since pre-Covid-19) there was nowhere in town where we could buy them, which is silly as these power the single hob emergency burners that are ideal for emergency kits. We’d had to resort to asking one of the other bach holders, who had a boat, it they’d mind getting us several packs and bringing them down. (Envisaging getting them from The Warehouse or one of the hardware chains where it would be possible to get four four packs, and he’d get them from his local hardware store where he could only get three for the same price.)

So I bought a four pack. If this means that I can get a pack every time I go to Rangitoto, that should take a lot of stress out of making sure I’ve got fuel for boiling the kettle.

Back to the hotel where we got our bags, (I nearly took Pen’s as well), slipping a foldable carryall of mine over my case’s handle. I hadn’t gone very far when I felt it swing round onto my legs.

My old Rangitoto bag had a N-shaped retractable handle, and that went someway to stopping the bag from rotating. But, now that I’m having to bring everything myself, it’s not big enough to carry all my gear and food. My “new” Rangitoto bag (which I’ve had to bring in case we wind up having to walk to Islington Bay to catch the ferry on Friday), whilst the same model as the old one, has a T-shaped handle which allows any bags slipped over to pivot around it. I had hoped that strapping it to the top of the case with a bungy cord would hold it in place, but that wasn’t working. So, we made some adjustments. Still wasn’t working. And again…

One other disadvantage of this style of case, is that the top slopes a little, meaning that anything sitting on it doesn’t have a flat surface to rest in. In the end, Pen carried my bag and I strapped her, more structured, carryall onto my case. Which worked a lot better.

We made our way (using the shortcuts that I know that stop you from having to haul your luggage down the steepest part of Hobson Street) to pier 14 and I sat with our gear whilst Pen went and got me an ice cream (Movenpick chocolate. Yum!) and herself a milk shake. As I sat, I was able watch those for whom this was their first trip to Rangitoto, do the wrong things. (“You can’t go down the gangway yet. They’ll have to give you a biosecurity briefing first…” “Don’t forget to scrape your shoes in the brushes to get rid of any seeds that may be on them…”)

When the two Fullers staff members did arrive, one gave the biosecurity talk, whilst I stood next to the one with the ticket scanner. “I’ve got a bach down there. Do you want to scan my friend and me now?” So she did, the scanner not liking Pen’s ticket as much. And then let me go down the gangway on the left side. I gestured with my head for Pen to follow me, but she didn’t see me, and then, when the briefing was over, wondered where I was.

I’m at the head of the queue, Pen.

During the journey, we left our gear in the cabin and went up to the second level deck. From here I could point out the sights of Auckland (that I knew). “That hill’s a volcano. That hill’s a volcano. That bay’s a volcano. That bay’s a volcano. That gap where there should be a hill was a volcano…”

And then we approached the biggest, newest, volcano of them all.

With no need to rush, we let the day trippers off first and then, after wishing the crew a merry Christmas, took our gear around to the “Pole House” information centre. Once again I left Pen there guarding most of our bags, whilst I took some of the smaller lighter ones around to the bach and opened up.

Our lock is a padlock. The code is a date. I entered the wrong date. Slight tweak to correct the day and I tried again.

Nope.

Final tweak to enter it in another format and…

Yay! I was in.

It was a quick dump of my gear, hello to the toys that help identify “Whare Taare” as the “Doll’s House”, taking Rudolph the solar powered fairly light reindeer outside to start charging, and it was back around to help Pen with the rest of our bags.

We’re only staying three nights!

Rudolph, sadly, is a waste of space now. One string of lights stopped working years ago – I think they snapped – so I added another string. September, when I put Rudolph out for a quick recharge, only one worked. And, last night, none of them worked. When you consider that we used to put so many lights on our bach that it could be seen from Archilles Point across the water, our neighbours have put us to shame this year.

And talking neighbours, for the first time in years, maybe the decades that we’d been coming down here on Christmas Day, we weren’t the only people on the island. Quincy was picking up a load of Book-A-Bach people off our boat – but I think they went around to Islington Bay. Darren, who got rid of the dry rot on Whare Taare for me, appears to be in residence. (Getting off the wharf I could see that he door was open and flag flying.) Bobby and his family next door in Buchanan’s are (with their generator) down. (Fortunately they only operate the generator intermittently and never any later than 10.00 pm.) All the Book-A-Bach baches are occupied, which means that the one on the other side of Buchanan’s. And, we discovered at the beginning of our evening stroll, Vick and Rick Shaw are in Little Coogee.

We slowly got everything and everyone sorted in the bach. We had to set up “the fridge” so we could keep our food cool. In other words, I put one plastic Sistemia container into a sink filled with water (once I’d found the plug that bunged it up), put a microfibre cloth over the top, hung a curtain in front to keep the sun for shining directly onto it. And that was our fridge. For keeping the kiwifruit and “baked” goods fresh, they went into the safe that hangs in the room that used to house our kerosene fridge. (And everything in it used to taste of kerosene.)

As Pen’s sleeping in D.C.’s bed, and D.C.’s mattress was rock solid kapok, I’d planned on her using the airbed that we had. Finding the airbed was no problem, I’d reminded myself where it was in September. It was the foot pump I couldn’t find. I was pretty sure that it was on top of the wardrobe, but I couldn’t see it. I checked a few other likely places, but they didn’t reveal anything. (Shades of the camera battery.) Then I tried on the wardrobe again and found it. Firstly, I’d been looking for the air pump by itself, and it was still in its box. Secondly, that box was standing on end, not lying flat.

Once found, and readied, it was much quicker and easier to inflate the air bed than it would have been blowing it up manually. And she slept with it on top of D.C.’s mattress and didn’t find the extra height too much of a bother.

When we’d finally got to the stage where everything was liveable, (windows un-shuttered and open, kettle boiled, beds made, mosquito nets in place, toilet disinfected and cleaned), I suggested that we leave for a walk at 4.00 pm, and looked at my watch to see what the time was.

4.40 pm.

So we grouped together the things we’d planned on having for tea – pasta salad, egg and potato salad, fruit salad, six-pack of muffins, chocolate, water bottles – and divided them between our bags – along with ensuring that Scott and Kally were on board, and set off.

Pen had decided that she wanted to go along the “coast” to Mackenzie Bay (which I’ve always called Mackenzie’s Bay), and then walk up to the summit for our dinner at sunset. I’m not sure that I’ve ever walked to the summit that way (I tend to take the direct route), so I was amiable. And we started walking.

It was a nice evening for a stroll. Not too hot, although I think our salads were all stewed by the time we got around to eating them from the heat generated by my back. We chatted away about the state of the world, and how stupid some politicians are from a variety of countries, including our own and got to Mackenzie Bay. It was so nice there, with the sun low in the sky and the water calm, so we decided to sit on a “comfortable” rock, and have the two savoury salads.

Having sat, enjoyed the scenery and the food, and taken the obligatory Scott and Kally photographs (I wish WordPress made it easier to insert photos and caption them. I’m tempted to go back to Blogger – if it still exists), and a toilet stop, we set off for the summit.

On the way we had discussions about why the lava fields had formed the way they did, why there seemed to be more vegetation at the summit than on Rangitoto’s flanks, (my theory is that when Rangitoto was in its death throes, it was burping out small amounts of fertile ash, not steaming great lava flows), and why did the summit seem to be so far away? I also pointed out the stretch of uncolonised lava that the Fuller’s tractor train guides called the rugby fields. On of our locals John Walsh, used to drive these tractors and he told this story, embellishing it with “that’s why the All Black rugby union team’s so tough.” The next thing he saw members of the Auckland Blues Super Rugby franchise on a training run. “See.” (I remember that day and I thought the Blues were even mad than I think anyone who plays rugby is. But then I found out that their next stop was Adeliade and 40℃ temperatures, so it made sense then.)

It was starting to get darker when we began the final climb up the steps to the crater rim, but we still kept on going, stopping to have a couple of photo stops and then breather when we reached the crater and were able to walk onto the platform and look into it.

That was when we were invaded by a group of people. We hadn’t seen a single soul since we’d left Little Coogee – with the exception of the guy rowing his dinghy from his yacht at Mackenzie Bay. This party were part of the tour group that kayak across from the mainland, hike to the top, walk down in the dark, have a bite to eat, and then kayak back – their beacons looking like little fairy lights on the water. We didn’t get to see this as we left them to take the shorter, but more strenuous walk up the steps to the summit, and took the long way around, circumnavigating the crater.

They were still there when we got to the summit. But we were all able to enjoy the oranges of the sunset (and Pen and I enjoyed a muffin each.)

They, red headlights glowing, headed back to wharf before we, with one white headlight and two torches, took a much slower trip down the hill. In full daylight we could have done it much quicker, but with the darkness, and the headlight running out of charge, we were much slower – and possibly safer.

We did take a detour along the boardwalk that lead to what is known as the “Lava Caves Lookout”. Except there’s plenty of lava and no caves. But from here we could sit and admire the stars, which Pen seemed impressed with. Of course, they’re all upside down from what she’s used to – “Orion’s Belt” is “The Pot” down here (in the northern hemisphere it must drain all its contents) – but we were far enough away from light pollution to see a few more than she normally would. But that’s going to be nothing compared to what we’ll see later in the trip – if the weather gods are kind.

Finally, we arrived back at the bach. At least, I did. Pen, for some reason, would rather use the public toilets rather than the ratty, grubby, spider-filled old long drop that’s full of holes and covered in dust and rust up the back.

It must have been 11.00 pm by the time we were both home. And we were ready for bed. Although Pen found the sound of crickets annoying. I’m going: “What crickets?”

My watch tells me that we walked 12.37 km around Rangitoto and a total of 32,051 steps for the day.