Spirit Quest

The highlight of the northern tip of the North Island is the Waipoua Forest, the home of the living giant kauri trees. We head up there to view and experience these kings of the forest for ourselves. On our way to the Forest, we make a couple of stops.

Our first stop is at the Sheep Factory where we buy ourselves a couple of sheep skins to ship home and find some funky punkrocker sheep.

Next we stop at the Kauri museum to learn more about the king of the forest and all the strenuous and exhausting work locals used to do to log these giants back in the day. The museum also contains many carvings and furniture made of this beautiful kauri wood. In front of the museum on display is part of the trunk of a kauri tree found in a river nearby which was anticipated to have been 12 ft in diameter.

We then continue on our way North to the Waipoua Kauri Forest to view the real thing. A narrow 18-km road winds its way through the Forest and offers some views of these giants, which when fully grown, can reach 180 ft high and 15 ft in diameter. We stop and walk a few trails through this peaceful, lush green forest to view some of the biggest kauri trees in NZ.

We view the Four Sisters first which are four of these giants all fused together at the base. We then take a walk which leads us to Te Matua Ngatere (the Father of the Forest). This is one of the BIG Daddies with a width of 48 ft. Its hard to explain how it feels to stand next to one of these. Now we know how Jack must have felt next to that humongous bean stock! Its intimidating and almost surreal. There are no branches except for at the top and their trunks are mostly as straight as an arrow with almost an alligator skin appearance. Oh yeah, and the two trees on each side of Te Matua Ngatere in this photo are big trees in their own right, it would take two people to bear hug these babies, just to give you some perspective.

We save the biggest for last. We take a very short five-minute walk to view Tane Mahuta, named by the Maori and means Lord of the Forest. This is the Big Kahuna as its the largest living kauri tree in NZ. It stands a towering 150 ft high with a girth of 40 feet and is estimated to be approximately 2000 years old. Can you find the Prince Edward Islander dwarfed by this big tree in this picture and can you tell who they are?

After the initial shock of the size of these trees, we continue on our way north to the Globetrekkers Hostel which is this quaint and cozy little spot with great service. It is situated only a few metres from the beach and a mountain of sand. We enjoy a lovely sunset on this our last night on the west coast of the North Island of NZ.

The next day we take some time to visit a very special place before making our way back south to Auckland. We cross over to the east coast to a village called Waitangi to visit the Waitangi Treaty Grounds. This is a place of great significance as it marks the spot where NZ was born. It is on these grounds that the Maori and the Europeans signed the Treaty of Waitangi. It seemed very fitting to visit this place of significance as we were winding down our time in NZ.

After visiting the grounds which consist of a very long waka (traditional Maori war canoe); the Treaty House, which was built in 1832 for the British resident James Busby and is surrounded by manicured lawns and gardens; a traditional Maori meeting house, and a flagpole with three flags ( Europe, Maori, and NZ), which marks the exact spot where the actual signing took place. We sit on the grounds filled with gratitude enjoying the hillside views of this beautiful land and reminiscing on our time in this land of beauty, adventure, and now, unforgettable memories.

Quote of the Day: My profession is to always find God in Nature.

Henry David Thoreau