Takarunga / Mount Victoria

This guide to Takarunga / Mount Victoria in Auckland moves between two very different lives of the same volcanic cone: centuries as a fortified Maori pa with terraces still visible in the grass, and its transformation into a colonial signal station after an 1885 war scare sent a false alarm through the city. You'll hear about the flagstaff keeper who watched for ships, the settlement once called Flagstaff before it became Devonport, and the massive disappearing gun installed on the summit. It stands on one of dozens of volcanoes that built Auckland roughly thirty five thousand years ago.