Rangitoto Island

This guide to Rangitoto Island traces the volcano's sudden birth some six hundred years ago, the darker meaning behind its Maori name recalling a wounded warrior's blood, and the community of holiday bach-builders who squatted the shoreline through the 1920s and 30s until the government stepped in. Ferns and pohutukawa have muscled their roots straight through bare scoria with barely any soil beneath them. Look down at the ground you're walking on as you climb toward the summit.