This forest stretches from Rotorua City to the Blue and Green Lakes and there are heaps of tracks to choose from. We did the half-hour Redwood Memorial Grove track.
The North American redwood trees were planted in 1901 as part of an experimental forest to see which imported trees grew the best in New Zealand.
The Redwoods Tree Walk is also here, where you can walk on 28 swing bridges suspended above the understory layer. It costs $35 each and the night walk is included in the price. I recommend it.
The Waipoua Forest is the place to see giant kauri trees. The ancient trees we saw were Tane Mahuta and Te Matua Ngahere.
Tane Mahuta means ‘Lord of the Forest’ and ‘Te Matua Ngahere’ means ‘Father of the Forest.’
There are four walking tracks: Tane Mahuta which is just off the road, and the other track leads to the Four Sisters, Te Matua Ngahere and the Yakas kauri. The tracks to the Four Sisters and the Yakas Kauri were closed because of the threat of kauri dieback.
Tane MahutaWaipoua RiverTe Matua Ngahere
Kaitiakitanga: means guardianship, protection, preservation or sheltering. It is a way of managing the environment, based on the traditional Māori world view. The guardian of the Waipoua Forest is the Te Roroa iwi (tribe) which is part of the Ngāti Whātua confederation of tribes.
The late Noel Hilliam from Dargaville Museum was one of the archaeologists working on the sites in the nearby Waipoua Forest. He states that nearly half a million dollars of taxpayers money went on excavations by 37 archaeologists in 1981 and in 1983. A local Kaumatua (elder) closed the whole site down and records deposited in Wellington archives had a hold put on them for 75 years. Attempts have been made over the years to get these records released but only a few sanitized results were forth coming and all original datings (2500 BC) have been destroyed.
Here is an excerpt from section 4.1 of that report from 1990 where I’ve highlighted what jumped out at me.
It’s criminal that the sites are being destroyed and covered with pines and bracken fern. An archeological reserve was proposed in 1985 but nothing seems to have come from it and it’s very hard to find information about the stone ruins. More info is in the links below.
‘Puke’ means ‘hill,’ Turehu’ are the original inhabitants of the land.
Turehu: Hoani Nahe, a Ngāti Maru (Hauraki) elder of the late 19th and early 20th centuries writes graphically of a people called the patupaiarehe and the tūrehu, who inhabited the land prior to the arrival of the Polynesian peoples. Source: TeAra, The Encyclopedia of NZ
Waipoua Whitewash, Challenging NZ History, Who were here first? “Waipoua Forest is best known for its primeval kauri trees, but there is also a major pine plantation in the forest which is wrecking the stone city. The roots of the pines are cracking ancient structures and when the pines are felled for timber, they’re likely to destroy a lot of the stone structures. Free ranging cattle are also damaging the site.” Source: elocal
This is another mainland island, like Bushy Park, but without the pest proof fence. It has about 200 kiwi. We returned at night hoping to see some but didn’t. There’s a 50-50 chance of seeing them. We heard one call and a morepork answered.
The park has some fine kauri trees but it’s not as well visited as the nearby Waipoua forest.
This forest is a gift to us from James Trounson, an early settler. The park opened in 1921.
Dome Forest is one of my local walks and the hill is a landmark. You can either go to the viewing platform, which looks south over State Highway 1 and Warkworth, or you can take the longer walk to the Dome (336 metres.)
Walk 23, Kauaeranga Model Dam / Kahikatea Walk, 27 Dec 2019
The Kauaeranga valley is near Thames. It’s a pretty valley but stripped of its original Kauri forests. A century ago the trees were chopped down and the timber was used for things like ship’s masts, furniture, houses and the rebuilding of San Francisco.
The logs were floated down the valley using Kauri dams.
The walk to the model dam begins at the DOC Visitor Centre car park. The dam is a working small scale model, a third of the size of the original Tarawaere Kauri dam further up the valley.
On the way to the model dam, there’s a treasure hunt with a conservation theme. It’s really for kids but we did it and presented the results to the DOC staff for our sticker!
Walk: Coromandel 5
There’s another model of a Kauri dam in the small town of Katikati, which I show in the Haiku Walk.
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