Kaitaia to Shakespear Regional Park

We headed from Kaitaia to see Tane Mahuta in Waipoua Forest - well, it just blew us away with its grandeur. It is the tallest kauri that exists.

It dwarfs everything around it! Look at the trunks of the other trees.

This is as close to Tane Mahuta as you can get. I didn't realise that some of the kauri roots are close to the surface and so we need to keep our distance.

From a bit further away.

And back up the hill above the parking area we looked back to see how tall Tane Mahuta actually is - there is its canopy, towering above the rest of the forest.

We had arranged earlier that day that we would stay at Waipoua Forest Camp - it is an iwi run camp. It's very basic and it is cool. There was one other motorhome there when we arrived and a little camper van arrived later. The place is extremely quiet - in the middle of the bush and the only noise is the bird song. Lovely.

At one point in the evening David went out to dispose of rubbish (it's pack in, pack out, but he hadn't clocked that on the signage - and nor had I to be fair) and he was gone for ages. Eventually, after an hour or so, I went looking for him.

I found him in the camp kitchen talking with Cat. Once I knew he hadn't wandered off to the river and fallen in, I left him and went back to continue reading... 

When he returned, he told me Cat and Henry are from the UK and are hitchhiking around NZ. So I suggested he go and offer them a ride to Dargaville in the morning. Yes they said, and were ready before 10am.

Cat and Henry

Because we ignored one brown sign for the oldest kauri tree not far from Tane Mahuta, I decided we needed to at least pay lip-service to the rule around stopping for brown signs. So we pulled in to the Nelson Kaihu Kauri shop and gallery. What an amazing place. Nelson Kaihu uses kauri that's thousands of years old and has been retrieved from swamps - he makes tabletops, table stands, large bowls, ... 

David fell in love with a table top that had slabs of kauri embedded in black resin. It was beautiful and I said no. But given we have sold the boat, we could afford it. It was only $5600. Say it fast and it's not much ...

I did buy a koru shaped double placemat made of kauri. That will have to do. We can think of the tabletop when we use it.

I did buy two small pieces of greenstone for Cat and Henry - as you may be aware, giving a gift of greenstone is significant for Māori. It is said to keep the recipient safe and bring them back to Aotearoa.

When we arrived in Dargaville, having bypassed the Hokianga completely (just blithely drove though, no stops: I did consider stopping at Opononi but every available space to stop was full) we pulled in to the NZMCA park - delighted to find it is just across the bridge from the town centre.

I had seen on the net that there was a rail trip on converted golf-carts and we had decided to do it. 

Our own little golf cart...

 

 

There was only one other set of passengers in their own cart. A group that included 3 dogs, and a 2 year old child... seeing as how uncontrolled and barky one of the dogs was, and how lax the parents' attention was to the child and the dogs, we decided we would be last in the procession. Not sure that was a  good idea, because I was constantly alert to either the child falling out as she swung from the side roof support of the golfcart, and the sight of the dogs leaving the cart every time we had to stop... Nightmare!

The saving grace though were the scones that Dave, one of the operators had made for morning tea.He and I discussed scone recipes and I gave him the link for my world famous Ministry of Food cheese scones. I hope he tries them.

When I first looked at that bridge I thought there was a gap between the bridge and the piling - then I realised the pilings were for a bridge that has been demolished - phew!

Crossing one of the bridges - not very high fortunately! But look at how worn those sleepers are...

It's an OK trip, nothing startling in terms of what there is to see, but it was pleasant enough.

In Dargaville we also managed to get the Sale Contract for the boat signed and couriered off to the UK. That reminds me, I've not yet heard if they have arrived - better check with the brokers. 

And we joined local NZMCA members for their monthly drinks and dinner session in the building on site. Some very interesting history  and some lovely people. 

We'd had a recommendation that the Matakohe Kauri Museum was worth a visit so we headed to the adjacent holiday park early, parked on a site and went to the lovely cafe for brunch. Then the museum.

Well, very definitely impressive. But heartbreaking as well. It proudly displays the logging and kauri gum history of the area. And while it notes how much kauri forest was lost - over 90% of what was here has been chopped down - and the museum doesn't seem to explore the environmental or human aspects of that loss. Let alone the death of the beauty of the kauri forests. But lots of people made lots of money and lots of land was cleared (read deforested) for lucrative farming. It made me cry.

This is a 4 inch lengthwise slab of a kauri that was felled because it was rotting from the root system up. It was huge but tiny in comparison to Tane Mahuta.

 

The round slab on the wall looking like a target is a slice from near the bottom of the tree - see the photo below. I didn't take a close up photo of the 'target' which described which trees were larger, I'm sorry. My bad!

Milling this tree was a huge job and it was done in sections with very specific measurements to ensure this slab was left intact.

These summed it up for me.

 

In spite of my sentimentality, I would recommend a visit to the museum. It definitely is thorough in its descriptions of the logging industry and there are great displays of the machinery used. My late brother in law, Muzza, who was a forestry worker, in his younger days just loved the museum and I can understand why.

We called in at a little shop next door that was selling locally made crafts, I bought a wooden butter knife and we chatted with the old guy running the shop. Some people will take any opportunity to display their prejudice! Bloody hell - somehow he managed to inject into the conversation that where he had lived in Auckland (Mangere) used to be a nice area, but now has too many immigrants: Samoans, Islanders, Asians. Needless to say, he got the McDonald 'We are all immigrants, mate!' aaarrrggghhh!!!

Some days before, David had taken a punt about where we would be on or around my birthday, and ordered a birthday present for me - some noise cancelling headphones for use with the laptop. So the next morning from Matakohe we headed back to Whangarei - I am not sure what Google maps was thinking, but it was the most circuitous route with the most roadworks and traffic lights and one way sections of any road I have ever driven on! But, as we say, it's all an adventure... And the headphones are great - and because ACP tends to commandeer/colonise/appropriate my electronic stuff, I insisted he put a piece of white tape with an M on them and their case, so he could be caught in the misappropriation if/when it occurs. Because you just know it will.👹😈😡

We didn't want to stay in Whangarei - too big, too busy, too noisy - and the NZMCA park is beaut but a long way out and we have already got lost leaving there once (bloody Google maps has it in for us on a purely random basis - did it to us in Hamilton a few days ago [yes I am behind in the blog again!] trying to send us on 3 sides of a very big square as the way back to where we are staying instead of a direct one-side walk,...) 

So we headed for the holiday park at Ruakaka - it is really lovely. Because it was so hot, we asked for a site with shade. The camp is very VERY big and when we had checked in, David raised the barrier arm and said he would walk. Well, reader - he got lost, of course he did. To be fair, the park is big, the numbering system is strange as the camp is divided into 6 different camps and the 'camps' all start their site numbers from 1 and a few of them have more than 30 sites - and we were on Site 32. He eventually found where I was - I had already parked. I don't think I had turned on the gas and got a cup of tea on the go, but I had plugged us in to the power, and prepared dinner. Well not quite. But I was considering sending out a search party.

With all the roadworks we had been through that day there was quite a lot of concrete splash on the motorhome, so David took on the job of cleaning the lower half to get it all off.

 

The concrete splashes were everywhere and were especially heavy on the passenger side as it was closest to the side of the road.

It wasn't the only time he got lost there. The next day he went looking for the facilities block, and even though I had pointed him in the general direction and showed him it on the site plan, he still wandered lonely as a cloud and had to find his way to the office and be directed to the facilities and back to our site. I do worry about him, even through my laughter, honest, I do.

At one point in the afternoon, I was sitting outside reading (in the shade) and David was inside. I heard a bang and then plaintive call and went racing inside because he sounded as though he was in distress. But not inside! 'Where are you, are you OK?' I called. 'Yes, I'm out here. Look what's happened.' 

Bugger! A window that was wide open had been caught by a gust of wind and its 2 part window stays had been over-extended and separated, and the window had lifted out of its top slot and landed on the ground. Bugger!!

Fortunately it wasn't broken, but the stays were shot. I fetched the toolbox for a screwdriver, two stools (one of top of the other), removed the end cap of the bracket for the window (note to self: must replace the silicone before it rains) and slid the window back in its slot, replaced the end cap and then tried to get the window stays back together. One worked, the other didn't. Dammit. So we closed the window with the catches and I unscrewed and removed the stay that wouldn't reunite with its partner. Then because I am anxious, I put some intensely sticky waterproof tape on the vertical sides of the window and outside wall. Belt and braces, you know. And given how strong the wind was the next day when we headed to Shakespear Regional Park, I am really glad I had taped it!

What a bloody awful trip that was in the strong winds that were sweeping the country. If I'd known it was that bad (my fault for not checking) I would have stayed put at Ruakaka. It was the worst and scariest drive I've ever done in the motorhome, and being a long time Wellington resident, you can be sure that I know strong wind.