I didn't leave the campground as early as I wanted today. It took me some time to get going, to have breakfast, and chit chat with some people. Plus I just enjoyed this camp so much I wanted to stay another night, but as usual, I had to get on the move. It was a nice day for driving. On my way south, I knew at some point I was going to have to catch a ferry in order to cross a river. Well in my efforts to avoid a fee to put my car and myself on the ferry, I decided to take the longer way around. Not the best choice. The route was confusing and unknown to me, part of my little detour was on a rough gravel road.
At any rate, I made it to my destination in mind -the Waipoua Forest. It is home to the biggest kauri tree and it's the world's oldest. This Lord of the Forest, the Tane Mahuta, is about 1,500-2,500 years old. The trunk's girth is 45 feet and the height is 168 feet.
I drove through the forest and it was so lush and overgrown. I came to the pull out and of course many other visitors were there too. It was only a moments walk into the forest and then I spotted it, my jaw dropped. It completely stood out from the rest and I couldn't take my eyes off it. There's only one word to describe it and that's: HUGE. Just the trunk itself is enormous and goes up 58 feet before it even turns into branches. Now the branches are even bigger than most trees! It was just too much for words. I took pictures then just kind of stood there for awhile in awe and I knew I was in the presence of something so special.
I continued on the walkway and it took you to a spot further back than the first for more of a wide view. Here you could actually get the whole tree in a single picture. I finally left this spot and went in search of the Four Sisters. At the beginning of the walk, there was a shoe cleaning station. Kauri are in few numbers and there's a disease that's killing them off so the department of conservation wants the kauri and the grounds that they live on to stay as pristine as possible. A ten minute walk led me to four kauri trees that stood very close together. Seeing four massive trees like that all in one area was really neat.
I drove the rest of the forest and saw a few more notably big kauri and many other cool trees. This was quite an area. I went 50 more kilometers and hit Dargaville. I went to the gas station, the store, and found the holiday park. It was a small one and very quiet ran by an older couple. I cooked up spaghetti and meatballs in the kitchen with the camping stove and pot. I met a young German couple who were on a working holiday (like them all) and they actually found a farm to work on here in the town. Everyone is always surprised to meet someone from Alaska and I'm a lot of people's first Alaskan. Canadian is their first guess, close enough.
