Our next and last stop is the forest, 30 minutes down the road. After leaving the coast, we drive up into the forest on a road that is canopied with trees. We’re driving at a good clip, until we get behind a tractor trailer hauling enormous cut trees. The driver kindly pulls over to let us pass, but just so happens to pull over blocking the parking area for Tane Mahuta. Figures! We pull off to the other side of the road and wave him on. At least most of the drivers are pretty polite here – its probably a prerequisite to constantly driving these crazy little roads.
We clean our shoes at the start of the walkway (to protect the Kauri trees from the dieback disease, a fungus that can get into the soil and infect the Kauri tree roots), then walk the 5 minutes out to the big huge tree. And big and huge don’t even begin to describe this behemoth. We thought the trees in the AH Reed park were big – unh uh – nothing like this one:
Tane Mahuta means “Lord of the Forest” in Maori, and you can certainly see why the name was bestowed upon this tree. No one knows for certain its age, but it is estimated to be between 1250 and 2000 years old. The tree is so important to the country, that during the drought in 2013, close to 2,700 gallons of water from a nearby stream was diverted to keep the tree hydrated.
It’s time to hit the bricks. It’s 3:30 and we still have at least a 2 hour drive back to Whangarei, so we hit the road, following and passing trucks hauling more huge logs, passing locals who have pulled over to let Mario “Ed” Andretti pass them, over rolling hills filled with cattle. We watch as farmers feed their herds, the cows forming one long undulating line as they follow the tractor across the top of a hill grazing on the hay being dropped. We watch cows coming home (when the cows come home – it really is an accurate saying), walking single file down a dirt pathway by the road.
The long views up here as we traverse the hillsides are incredible. Endless views of rolling hills dotted with trees, cattle and pastures, each more beautiful than the next as they are exposed with every new turn in the road. And trust us, there are many, many turns in the road.
As we make the turn back to the west, we pass through Dargaville with the huge Wairoa River churning through the center of town. The river is totally brown – which is odd since all we’ve seen so far are the clear crystal springs and rivers around the waterfalls. It’s weird, and as we pass tributaries and springs that flow into the Wairoa, the water is so brown it is sometimes hard to discern whether we are looking at fields or water.
The rest of the trip is uneventful and we make it back to Whangarei and our little outpost of Onerahi easily. We decide we don’t want to go out to eat tonight – so we stop at the New World grocery store and pick up some lamb leg steaks and a chicken breast with herb crumbed topping. That will hold us, along with the left over snacks and beer and wine we still have at the apartment. Why bother driving when we can eat at home in peace with a nice cool breeze overlooking the water? Done.
And so, that is exactly what we do, along with putting the final touches on our packing and planning our final day in New Zealand.
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