Day 4 - Mon 15 Oct

Breakfast fashions

Breakfast by the van, then started the day at the Matahoke Kauri Museum. According to the brochure, "This huge museum provides a stimulating insight into the Kauri theme" -- whatever that means. It was actually a lot more interesting than you would expect. As well as many objects made from Kauri and a 22.5m long slab of Kauri, they had a large collection of logging and processing equipment such as a 3m long 2-man chainsaw, and a model of a working saw mill. Mature Kauri trees are commonly 3m or more in diameter so it takes a lot of work to process them .. in some cases they had to be split lengthwise before being taken into the sawmill. The Kauri wood was popular for furniture, shipbuilding, shingle roofing .. just about anything. They had some very old samples of Kauri that had fallen into mud and been preserved. One piece was dated as 300,000 years old. A piece they have from Victoria was up to 30 million years old. The museum also had a huge and fascinating collection of Kauri gum. To quote the brochure again: "You will be inspired and impressed by this wonderful exhibition".

Kauri gum By Gum
The Kauri tree creates gum to cover any wounds and prevent infection and (I guess) the loss of sap / moisture due to evaporation. The gum forms in large lumps on the side of the tree and eventually falls to the ground as the tree sheds its outer bark (which it does continually). The Maoris traditionally used the Gum for chewing (they used to pass it from one person to another!) and mixed with ash to make dyes for their tattoos. Europeans found many uses for the gum including a high quality varnish, fire starters, marine glue, candles and lino floors.
Gum bug
Gum is also highly collectable. When polished it looks much like amber (in fact, the only difference between gum and amber is the age). It can be carved into intricate shapes, used for jewellery, and pieces can be found with captive insects (a-la Jurassic Park).

From Matahoke we continued west across to Raupo, then north up the Wairoa River through Naumai, Tokatoka, Mititai and Turiwiri before reaching Dargaville. Dargaville is the major town in the Kauri Coast area and was, in its prime, an important river port for the Kauri trade. As we were driving into town we saw a strange sign featuring three characters. There was a fish, a cow, and a mysterious, pointy-headed maroon character waving in the middle. Match this with the fact that just at this time the Spankers album reached a song about UFO attacks .. it makes you wonder (mostly about what sort of music we listen to as we travel around!!) It turned out that the pointy character was a kumara (sweet potato) and that Dargaville is the kumara capital of New Zealand (probably the world!!)

... it's Kumaraman

There were kumaras everywhere .. for sale, served in food (mmm .. kumara wedges), pictures, waving kumara characters, used as a building material in kumara and mud brick houses (OK, I made that bit up). They were certainly into kumaras. But we just couldn't help thinking that the waving kumara guy looked like a not-too-distant relative of Southpark's Mr Hanky.

Continued North and just after Kaihu, we took a detour off the main highway to visit the Trounson Kauri Park. Just as we parked and were about to start the hike, we were warned by some girls in another camper van to ensure we had all our valuables. Apparently they returned from the walking track to find someone trying to break into their van. He ran off and some other tourists had fetched the Department of Conservation guys from the local station, who had then called the police. Since the thief was interrupted, he'd run off leaving his car behind, and apparently there was a jacket with some ID inside, so hopefully they caught this one.

We contemplated driving off without doing the walk, but the DOC guys were staying around so they offered to watch our van. So we did the walk, which would have been a shame to miss. In about 30 mins you walk through a beautiful forest with streams and some huge kauri trees .. some of the biggest in this area. There's also the Four Sisters .. two kauri trees, each with two trunks (a sort of Siamese tree thing that seems to be fairly common in kauris). Much of the walk is along a raised wooden walkway since the kauri feeder roots are very close to the surface and they believe that some kauri trees have been damaged and even killed by tourists walking around the base.

Trees in Trounson

From here we went back to the main road and continued up to the Waipoua Kauri Forest. The road winds through several large stands of mature Kauri trees. Just inside the forest we followed another unsealed track to an ex-fire lookout, now open to the public. Has great views of the surrounding forests, though was a bit misty or hazy. Another carpark a few kilometres further on is the starting point for a 30 minute hike to Te Matua Ngahere (Father of the Forest), a 2000-year old, 5.22 m diameter kauri tree -- the widest girth of any kauri in NZ. There's also a different set of four sisters nearby, though it wasn't clear how many trees this was (two split? four separate?). This carpark has in the past been the target of robbers, so is now guarded by volunteer "watchers" who keep an eye on things in return for a suggested donation of $2. Turned out we were out of NZ cash, so handed over about $5 Australian since we felt guilty for making them change it. As we were heading off for the walk, since it was late, I asked the young guy how late he would be staying. It was soon clear that he was about to leave, but he assured us that he wouldn't be leaving until his uncle arrived. However, we weren't 10m down the track when we saw him cycle off, leaving the truck behind. When we returned about 60 minutes later, the truck was gone as well. Who knows how long our stuff was actually guarded, but it was untouched regardless so no harm done. We felt quite ripped off for our AUD $5 though!

Back to our campsite for the night .. also a lovely setting. We were the only camper van around, and had our pick of spots, ending up directly beside a stream. We made good use of their extensive facilities, firing up the BBQ for our lamb chops (when in NZ ... eat lamb!)

After dinner, we went on a guided night-time nature walk run by the owners of our park (just us and one other couple). This turned out to be back in the Trounson Kauri Park, however, it was good to see it with the benefit of a completely different viewpoint, both being at night, and having a guide. Our guide Herb was quite knowledgeable about the various plants and animals in the area. We saw eels, wetas (both cave and bush varieties - cricket-like insects with legs up to 10 cm long), kauri snails (which can grow to around 8 cm across) and glowworms (they don't live just in caves). We were unsuccessful in the ultimate goal of spotting the elusive Kiwi, however, we did hear several calling. The Kiwi has a quite distinctive whistle-like call. The male calls between 8 and 20 times. The female has a more gutteral sounding call , and calls just a few times in response. We heard several different males calling and one or two females, but no sightings this time despite our best efforts with the spotter torches.

Back to the camp and Herb pointed out a local resident owl and also took us to a quite impressive glowworm grotto down the back of their property before we retired for the evening.

Today we also firmly made the decision to drop the South Island. Just too much to see in the North Island, and we want to be able to take the scenic routes .. not have to be goal oriented to get to the next point. Phoned AA to change flights to return from Auckland instead.