Rangitoto

Ok, so last weekend I went with a bunch of other international students to Rangitoto. Rangitoto is a volcanic island very close to Auckland. The island supposedly formed only 500-600 years ago so it is very new. We all met up and walked about 5 minutes from our hostel to the ferry. The ferry is only about 20nz$ which is the equivelant to about 15 U.S. dollars. The ferry ride took about 20 minutes and then we were on the island. It is very apparent that the island is young because when you get there, volcanic rock is everywhere. What is wierd is that there are plants everywhere growing out of the volcanic rock. We hiked up to the top of the volcano and walked out onto a ledge that lets you look into the crater. Now the crater is covered with plants and trees but you can definitely tell that it is a crater. Afterwards we hiked back down into some lava caves. Now the first cave we found was pretty cool and we tried to squeeze our way through the cave, but the next cave we found was huge. We actually could just stand up and walk through it, the only problem was that you couldn't see anything, it was pitch black. So all of us tripped about a hundred times trying to make our way through the cave. Eventually after a few hundred feet we made it out though. After this we hiked back down to the bottom of the island and decided we couldn't leave without jumping in the water. Now, none of us had brought any swimming attire so everyone just jumped in with their normal clothes on.......clearly a bad idea. On the ferry we all looked like we had peed our pants, especially me because the bottom half of my shorts were dry but the top half remained wet. Attractive. After a long day of hiking (about 5 hours), I went looking for some food on the ferry and found something I have never heard of. A carrot, orange, poppyseed muffin. What the hell is that. Well one of the other international students bought one and gave me a piece to try. By far, the best muffin I have ever tasted, I'll have to buy like a few packs of them and bring them home. Anyways, that was my weekend and now I am still in my first week of school which I will talk about in my next post. Hope everyone is doing well!!