Waipoua and the Kauri Coast

When I headed north, I spent a night in Waipoua so I could see some of the kauri trees there. These trees are simply massive, as you can see in this picture. That's a guy I met who does forestry research and likes to look at trees in his spare time. He said this one tree held at least $500,000 worth of timber. Some of these trees are as wide as a two lane road and when Maori arrived, some were as wide as a four lane road. The kauri trees grow perfectly straight and with no low branches, so they were perfect for making ship masts and Europeans cut down entire forests until almost all were gone.

Now, the trees are protected, but people still dig them out of the ground. Apparently some event 45,000 years ago destroyed and buried vast kauri forests. Even after that time, the timber is perfectly good. The Kauri Kingdom has a spiral staircase entirely inside a tree and they have a couch carved from a single kauri stump for $40,000. Besides the timber, kauri also produce a gum (sap) that was used for varnishes and other products. It was also used as an artistic medium. Digging up gum nuggets of up to several hundred pounds became a major industry for several decades in Northland.



Posted by Hello