As The Crow Flies

Monday greetings, I trust your weekend was enjoyable - it was a long weekend here and a lot of people are still off work today - hopefully you're one of them :) I thought I'd share a few more pics today from our recent trip. When we were on our flight out of Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand, I was able to quickly snap these. 

These next eight are from when we were approaching New Zealand. 

Needless to say, I was pretty excited (& overtired) by this point!  

The scenery was truly magnificent.

This grassy mound (about 5 kilometres from downtown Auckland) caught my eye at the time. I've since found out that it is Mt. Eden, a dormant volcanic cinder cone whose summit (196 metres above sea level) is the highest natural point on the Auckland isthmus (narrow strip of land with water on both sides). A cinder cone or scoria cone is a steep conical hill of tephra (volcanic debris) that accumulates around and downwind from a volcanic vent. The bowl-like crater is 50 metres deep. This volcano last erupted some 28,000 years ago.

Mt. Eden (one of about 50 volcanoes in the Auckland volcanic field), is one of Auckland's most famous landmarks and is a great viewpoint for 360* views arond the city. Apparently because of the type of volcanoes in the this volcanic field, Mt Eden and any of the other existing volcanoes in the area will not likely erupt again.

Mt Eden, or Maunga-whau (the 'Mountain of the Whau tree' in Māori) was one of the most important Māori sites in the Auckland area. They lived here from about 800 years ago, building a pa (fortified village site) which was eventually abandoned in the 1700s. The cone and crater of Mt Eden are protected by law and visitors are asked to respect the sacredness and geological significance of the area by not climbing down into the crater.