TRAVEL: Climbing Auckland’s Iconic One Tree Hill

You come across all kinds when you travel the world. Alternatively, you could make a single stop at Auckland’s One Tree Hill and watch all kinds come to you.

The volcanic elevation is perfectly positioned as a citywide gathering point — rising nearly 600 feet above Cornwall Park on Auckland’s North Island and offering views of the city’s two bustling harbors. Freely accessible by locals, tourists and several herds of grazing sheep, the hilltop (Maungakiekie to the native Maori) is marked by a single, 100 foot obelisk — the grave site of Auckland’s founder (Sir John Logan Campbell).

A paved road snakes its way up and around the hill, ending at the memorial. Whether a visitor drives it or hikes to the top, there’s a unique blend of visitors waiting amidst its mix of hewn stone and volcanic formations.

That very afternoon, Kiwi families stepped carefully around a group of locals decked out in traditional Maori garb and tribal tattoos as the would-be warriors flashed vague gang signs and recorded a modern rap video with a home movie camera and live, thumping playback.

In the valley below, a team of wine-drizzled tourists laughed and hooted while they formed pumpkin-sized chunks of lava rock into 20-foot letters declaring, “I love sheep.”

While reviewing their mega-sized poetry from above — standing on a rock wall separating cars on the hill route from a 500 foot date with gravity — I had to jump back onto the road behind me as a young woman’s voice called out, “Excuse me.”

Dodging an oncoming motorcycle, I watched a young lady jog by me atop the two foot wide wall. She chugged along up the winding edge with the pavement to her left and that deadly drop to her right.

After a moment’s shock, I managed to ask her name. She was breathing too hard to hear as she passed. So, I shouted, “What are you doing up there?”

Her simple answer summed up the all-in attitude of what makes Auckland and its historic One Tree Hill enclave unique in the world:

“Anybody can run on the road, but on the wall…?”