{"id":3620,"date":"2016-02-27T20:57:49","date_gmt":"2016-02-27T20:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=3620"},"modified":"2016-02-27T20:57:49","modified_gmt":"2016-02-27T20:57:49","slug":"into-the-woods-waipoua-forest-nz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/?p=3620","title":{"rendered":"Into The Woods – Waipoua Forest, NZ"},"content":{"rendered":"
\""Toucan"
“Toucan” and “Escape Velocity” dwarfed by Tane Mahuta the giant Kauri.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Earlier this month we took a rare day off from boat jobs, and with our buddies from \u2018Escape Velocity\u2019 hired a car to explore the famous Kauri forests at Waipoua.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a two-hour drive from Whangarei, across country to the west side of the island. After so many months of seeing nothing but blue, the sight of all those green rolling hills and lush pastures had us all \u2018ooh-ing and ah-ing\u2019 with delight. Eventually we reached the west coast and caught a glimpse of the Tasman Sea from the lookout \u2013 it seems a lifetime ago now that I did my first ocean crossing on this stretch of water, delivering \u201cIllusion\u201d back to Australia with Bruce and our friend, Paul. That still rates as my number one worst passage ever! But on this day the Tasman looked to be on its best behaviour, all twinkly and sparkling in the sunshine.<\/p>\n

\"The
The lookout from Waipoua Forest, and just beyond, the Tasman Sea<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finding the giant Kauri trees was a bit more challenging, the forest stretched on for ever with nary a sign. We asked a German tourist who waved vaguely down the road. Eventually we came to the visitor information centre, but no giant Kauris there \u2013 it was another 10km on before we finally got to the site we\u2019d been looking for \u2013 the site of Tane Mahuta, \u201cthe Lord of the Forest\u201d, New Zealand\u2019s largest living Kauri tree. And what an impressive sight it is \u201351 metres high, with a girth of nearly 14 metres. They think this ancient giant of the forest has been standing sentinel for 2000 years or more, while the world has turned and changed around it.<\/p>\n

\"The
The canopy of Tane Mahuta<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"the
the Lord of the Forest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"the
the distinctive bark of the Kauri, like beaten copper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sadly, the Kauris are now being threatened by dieback caused by a fungus, supposedly spread by soil movement from vehicles and human feet. At the entrance and exit to the walks are \u2018cleaner stations\u2019 to try to prevent further spread of this disease, and visitors are encouraged to stay on the designated walkways. The area was declared a forest sanctuary in the 1950\u2019s and is managed by a volunteer forest trust who seem to be doing a good job of trying to protect this last vestige of ancient forest.<\/p>\n

\"Jack
Jack at the cleaner station<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Further on down the road we visited another stand of giant Kauris, including Te Matua Ngahere, the second largest kauri, and the Four Sisters.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Four Sisters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Te
Te Matua Ngahere, the second largest Kauri<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bruce
Bruce and Jack striding it out in the forest<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Bruce
Bruce and the Four Sisters<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s something very magical about these ancient forests, almost like visiting a cathedral \u2013 the stillness and the majesty leaves you with a feeling of awe and reverence. It\u2019s so very peaceful, far from the hustle and bustle of human activity.<\/p>\n

\"On
On our way home we spotted these colourful tree socks – seems the kiwis love their trees!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was a great outing and I think we all came away refreshed and reinvigorated, ready to face a few more boat jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this month we took a rare day off from boat jobs, and with our buddies from \u2018Escape Velocity\u2019 hired a car to explore the famous Kauri forests at Waipoua.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svtoucan"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6B46t-Wo","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3620"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3622,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3620\/revisions\/3622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/svtoucan.com\/svtblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}