May 17,2007, Kaitaia, New Zealand

Auckland harbor from Skytower.

 

Our team's Kea's at Manukau campground.

 

 

Date:  Thursday, May 17, 2007

Kaitaia, New Zealand

Another nice day (mainly fine) to drive.  We left Matakohe around 10:30AM after visiting the Kauri Museum.  After two visits there it was still an enjoyable stop to see the old sawmill and many pictures and history of the kauri trees.  What a shame that more of the trees were not preserved.  The Northland area at one time was completely covered with the kauri and they were huge specimens similar to the American redwood and sequoia and met the same fate.  The kauri grow with a trunk that is straight up with no limbs until about 60 to 80 feet and then a relatively small crown compared to the magnitude of the trunk.  Lumber people must start to salivate when they see one of these trees. 

 

Driving through the Waipoua Forest you see a number of kauri and you can only imagine what the forest must have been like before they were harvested.  Many of the trees were shipped off to Europe for shipbuilding and a lot were used for furniture building and other general use.  The other interesting by-product from the trees is what they call gum.  The gum is a sap that oozes from small wounds on the tree and drops down and into the ground.  This gum was used for varnish and to make linoleum and became a valuable product.  A whole industry developed around the digging and production of gum.  The men that searched for the gum and dug it out were called gumdiggers.  It was not a high paying job and it was a lot of work.

 

The gumdiggers in their spare time did carvings out of the gum, some of which were very intricate.  Lumps and pieces of gum are now valuable items to have and collect.  In the museum there are a number of personal collections that are on display and are back lighted and make a beautiful display.

 

In the Waipoua Forest we stopped to see Tane Mahuta, a kauri verified to be around 2000 years old.  It is totally awe-inspiring to see and almost impossible to capture the size in a photograph.  All you can do is stand there an say “wow, that is a really big tree”!!

 

Doris had found a short ferry ride  that would save us about 60 kms and all but Linda who decided on a different route took the short cut.  It was a nice 15 minute ride on the ferry from Rawene across the Hokianga and on up to Kaitaia.  The campground that we are staying at for the build is at Waipapakauri about 15km north of Kaitaia.  The campground is a short walk from the Tasmine Sea and the 90 Mile Beach.  We haven’t had a chance to check that out yet but will when we get a chance.

 

We all arrived in good shape at the campground anticipating meeting with the local Habitat group and a barbecue they were preparing.  The evening was very enjoyable and the barbecue was great.  Malcolm Bellete the head of the Northland affiliate was the organizer and also will be the site manager.  Malcolm acted as chief cook on the barbecue and cooked steaks, chicken, bangers, and hamburgers.  With all the other side dishes it was a real feast.

 

The local affiliate has teamed with the Salvation Army in Kaitaia and the Salvation Army team joined everyone at the barbecue and also the partner family.  The Salvation Army is supplying a van for transportation and is supplying a lot of the effort for organizing food at the site.  They also have made one of the best offers ever made to us Care-A-Vanners and that is to do our laundry.  All we have to do is bag it and give it to them and they are going to do it and bring it back bagged.  We love them for that.

 

Well, this was also a very good day.