Kauri Kings - Waipoua Forest
If the great kauri forests of Northland are New Zealand’s untamed jungle, then Tane Mahuta is the undisputed king of this domain.
Who can forget the anticipation of their first visit to the court of this majestic being: camera in hand, eyes searching the dizzying canopy of sky and tangled foliage, the moist spongy carpet underfoot, huge gnarled toes of roots straying across to trip the unaware. The forbidding stares of silent ancient trunks standing sentinel. This is holy ground.
Yakas Kauri tree, Waipoua
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Remember the disbelief as you spotted the largest column of them all and the next second’s realization that Tane Mahuta is not he, that this god of the forest is the great mass of ancient bark and gnarled root that your mind dismissed as background. In the space of a moment all other giants are dwarfed by comparison. Life everywhere else seems strangely frivolous and fleeting. As the spirit awakes to a new sense of wonder, we feel intensely proud to be here, to be kiwi, to be kin to this majestic place. Pine forests and sheep pale into insignificance and Tolkien’s mythology seems but a poor substitute for the reality of this other-worldly place, where centuries have come and gone, yet survived to welcome one more human visitor to their domain.
Once seduced by the pull of the giant kauri, there’s plenty more to discover on the Kauri Coast. Trounson Kauri Park is a triumph of conservation management, a “mainland island” where kauri grow in near perfect conditions, their majesty a perfect counterfoil to native courtiers such as kauri grass, taraire, kiekie, neinei and ferns. Or you can discover the nocturnal secrets of the kauri world on a guided night tour to see kauri snails slide through the leaf litter, to hear wetas sing their clickety song and to listen to the distinct call of the North Island brown kiwi echoing through the wet woods. Koura, kokopu and eel teem in the freshwater streams. Then, the ultimate thrill: in a large clearing, a female kiwi picking over the ground with her long elegant beak.
By day discover how the human species of kiwi has interacted with kauri over the centuries at The Kauri Museum in Matakohe. Its award-winning exhibits bring the past to life, telling the stories of the men and women whose histories became inextricably intertwined with the gnarled roots of these ancient trees.
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