May 18, 2008 – Pahia to Matakohe
Weather: Extremely fine, about the best day weather wise to date.
Today we headed from Pahia on the Pacific side of the north island over to the west coast so that we could drive down through the Waipoua Kauri Forest to see the 2,000 year old Tane Mahuta kauri tree. There is a small town on route 12 as you turn south called Opononi on a large inlet from the Tasman Sea called Hokianga Harbour.
Joan and Marjory - where to next?
Opononi Inlet
Jay and Joyce coming back from inlet overlook.
Previous trips through here had always been on overcast gloomy days but today was a beautiful clear blue sky day and we enjoyed a different perspective of the area. There is a huge sand dune on the north side of the inlet with the town spread along the south side. Roy, Marjory, Joan and I were traveling together and we stopped for coffee at a café and sat and enjoyed the view for awhile. As we made the turn to head south there was a turnoff to a viewing area that we decided to stop at and the view turned out to be spectacular. It was high up on a bluff at the opening of the harbour. We could see the waves forming far out to sea and then progressing into the beaches both on the south and north sides of the harbour inlet.
We continued on south along the Tasman through the Waipoua Forest and stopped to see Tane Mahuta. This tree is awe inspiring and when you first see it as you’re walking through the forest you just can’t believe the size of it. The girth is over 13 meters and straight all the way up to the canopy. There is another tree that’s not quite as tall but has a larger girth at over 16 meters. The kauri tree is now protected and it is against the law to cut them down. They do a lot digging and searching for trees that were blown over and buried in low lying areas many years ago. We stopped in Dargaville, a town in the middle of the Northland area generally considered the center of the kauri forest, to buy a few pieces of kauri wood to bring home. The owner of the store is a wood turner who makes bowls and other art objects out of kauri. He told us that he and another craftsman split the $100,000 cost of speculative digging a buried tree. They did obtain enough kauri to last a number of years and he stores a lot of it in a couple of ex-shipping containers in the back of his shop and store. He turns beautiful bowls that bringquite high prices, some into thousands of dollars.
Tane Mahuta
Dargaville has an airport that we have stopped at every time we have gone by that area. The first year we stopped the runway was covered with sheep apparently used for mowing purposes. I had talked with the manager who also did flight instruction there. In the course of the conversation I explained about how we were there with Habitat. We had a nice talk and he invited us back on any Saturday when the club meets there to fly and have a covered dish lunch. We had never made it past there on a Saturday and today was Sunday. Today he was there again along with another couple. He is now retired andis at the airport full time managing things and doing flight training. He remembered me from four years ago and at that time we were doing a Habitat build over at Waipu. In the course of our conversation I told him and the other couple about my ride in a Tiger Moth down on the south island. The couple said that they were going down there in another month and went on to explain that the Fox Moth that was in the museum there and still flown was the first plane used for mail service and people transport in New Zealand. She went on to say that her grandfather was a gold prospector on the west coast beach back then and used to flag down the plane for a ride to Greymouth north of where he was prospecting. Once again it was one of those interesting conversations with friendly New Zealander’s. I was again invited to come back on a Saturday to hang out, take a ride, and share flying stories. I found out that the airport had been voted the best small airport in New Zealand for the past year and has trained more pilots there than any other. I can only hope that someday we go by on a Saturday.
From Dargaville we drove on down to Matakohe where the Kauri Museum is and spent the night there in the Top 10 Campground.
Another interesting and good day.
Kiwi Word Of The Day: Jandals – flipflops (from “Japanese sandals”)
No comments:
Post a Comment