Reliving memories

On my 3rd day in New Zealand, I climbed a volcano. It was called Rangitoto, and the hostel I was staying in offered a group climb. I made a blog entry about the climb, saying it was so hard and hot and I wore jeans to climb it. However, once you got to the top, it was incredible.
I've been wanting to climb it again for months. Everytime I try to go, my partner can't come, the weather is bad, or something just gets in the way. However, with the girls back, I was finally able to do it again. This time I wore athletic pants, instead of jeans. It was a much better choice.

We started the day with a rainbow. Good sign. I was excited to see how difficult it would be to climb again. Since being in Auckland, I've started running a lot and generally got myself into much better shape.

This was about halfway up. While it was no walk in the park, I definitely noticed that I wasn't struggling at all.

This is the big crater, right before the summit. Rangitoto is set to explode within the next 100 years. Since it's so close to the city, that will be a tragic day.

At the top! What a great feeling and what a view. I was so happy to accomplish it again, and have Kelsey and Kendra do it with me.

The terrain and path you follow is pretty rough. When you're going down, you're watching your feet and where you're stepping the entire. I rolled my ankle coming down. Thankfully it wasn't bad and didn't really start to hurt until the next day.

With the way the ferries run, you get 3 hours, or 6 hours to be on the volcano. We only did 3, but we had about 45 mins to kill before the ferry came, but everything around it is so gorgeous, so the wait was not a problem.

I love this place, so much.