Trees, Caves and Volcanoes

Thursday, February 4 – Sunday, February 7

Leaving Kerikeri, we drove across to the west side again, this time to visit the Kauri forests. We stopped in Opanoni to see the sea entrance to this large estuary going 50+ km inland. On the way out of town we stopped at what was signed as a scenic outlook. Turned out to be much more than this, with a great trail out to the headland point with spectacular views north and south along the coast.

Definitely an Avatar Tree of Life tree. The Mauri believe that Tane Mahuta 186 is the life giver, son of the earth father and sky mother. These trees are huge! We enjoyed several walks through the forest to see these large trees. 

Our destination today was Matakohe at the Moewaka Villa B&B. We were the only guests of Pat and Steve and they were wonderful (if a bit surprised as she had neglected to note our arrival on her calendar – but they coped extremely well.) We enjoyed a chicken stir-fry dinner with them and great conversation. The first really down to earth kiwis that we have met. They had a pretty good garden growing, with an excess of tomatoes, cucumbers and chicken eggs. So they forced a half dozen eggs on us that Steve hard boiled, along with three cucumbers and a number of large cherry tomatoes. Wonderful! They will go nicely with several lunches, and a dinner, in the next few days. Great people.

Next door to this B&B is the wonderful Kauri Museum. What a place! Lots of machinery, saws etc. in operating condition showing how the steam belt driven system worked to saw up these giant Kauri logs. (Kauri are not unlike our giant Sequoia – really big around.) The museum also had a big display of the Kauri gum industry that thrived from the 1860’s into the early 1900’s before the gum deposits in the swamp lands were pretty much depleted.

As we were leaving the museum at 10 or so in the morning quite a few beautifully restored model T’s rolled into the parking lot – the local Ford Model T club had organized some kind of an outing. The cars seemed to be fitted out with picnic gear and the occupants were appropriately dressed with older time clothing. The previous day we had stopped in Dargaville to see if we could pick up an electrical adapter plug which we could use to recharge this computer at the same time as we are using our transformer for other uses. The 2nd had store we walked into was fascinating – the old proprietor was a crusty curmudgeon type with several of signs in his shop advising parents to keep tight control of their children. But he did take a liking to us and started talking non-stop about all kinds of things – we were saved by a motorcyclist who popped in for something. Anyway, he also owns old restored cars and showed us pictures of his car that won a prize at the October 2009 old car show at the Kauri museum grounds.

As we were leaving the Northlands, we noticed how much greener it was than a few days earlier.

Drove back to Auckland airport to trade in the car. It had a high pitched squeal when the air con fan was set higher than 1, and with the heat and humidity, 1 didn’t make it. Got a nice upgrade in the process and our replacement vehicle works just great.

South of Auckland, the terrain changed tremendously. Instead of flat farmlands and sudden steep lush hills and gorges, there are rolling hills. Drove through mostly dairy lands, down to Waitoma and the caves. Time to go blackwater rafting!

Waitomo Caves today. Snappy was our tour guide; we were the only two on the tour (can be up to 12 people). This was a great three hour tour through some caves; we used inner tubes to float through some of the cave sections, and several times we had to stand on a ledge and lean back with your bum in the inner tube and fling yourself back and out to land in the water some three or so feet below. Great fun. And of course the glowworms were very interesting. Snappy took a number of pictures of us which they loaded onto a DVD for us to buy. We will probably look like beached whales with all of the wet suit gear we had to put on. When we weren’t floating we were making our way along in more shallow water in low caves; all in all quite an adventure.

After the caves we visited the Mangaphohue Natural Bridge area – beautiful. the trail then took us through fields past fossilized oysters and back to the car.

Next we visited the Marakopa Falls, a 10 minute walk to some really spectacular falls.

Opossums:

These critters are considered a major pest in NZ. They were introduced from Australia some time back and the population quickly got out of control. But most folks have possum traps and we also see lots of road kill; we hear that the population is decreasing. Our hosts here in Te Kuiti were explaining that they have two avocado trees. One tree had a good avocado crop last year but the opossums wiped it out just as the fruit was ripening. No love lost for these critters that are furrier than our variety in Torrance.

Maori:

What can we say; they are kind of in the same status as the Native American Indians except that they have good land rights dating back to the treaty signed between the Maori tribes and the English back in ~1840. Bring up the topic with the Pakeha (white New Zealanders) and get ready for a long passionate discourse. Other explanations to be verbal. Today is NZ Independence Day.

Place Names:

Most all towns and cities retain the Maori place names and are mostly pretty difficult to pronounce. Apparently the European settlers tried to introduce names from their home countries but essentially failed. An interesting contrast to how place names have changed in the United States from Native American through the Spanish era (at least in the SW) to more modern times.

Drove further south to the 1st National Park in NZ featuring 3 volcanoes, the youngest of which was Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately, the peaks were shrouded in snow. These are much younger volcanoes than Mammoth – the ski area was extremely rocky, and no trees.