Waipoua Forest

We left Ahipara after breakfast and headed south to Waipoua Forest, the home of the largest surviving Kauri tree. 

We stopped at a beach and Ryan and I jumped in the water. The kids played in the tide pools. 

We stopped in Kaihu which had beautiful coastal walking trails. This used to be a station crossing when the Europeans first settled here. We walked around. If you'd told me I was in Hawaii, I would have believed you. On the beach below were the same lava rock formations I see all over Oahu. Jack wandered off and we couldn't find him for a while. There was one trail that took 5 days to cover and I was afraid he'd gone that way. Luckily, he turned out and found his way back. 

We reached the north end of the Waipoua Forest. This tree is 40 feet wide. It's called Tane Mahuta and is thought to be the father of all Kauri. It's between 1500 and 2500 years old. It is ~150 feet high. Everything here is in meters so I have to approximate a lot.

Kauris are like American Redwoods in that they are extremely large and endangered. The Polynesians arrived here 800 years ago and New Zealand was covered in Kauri trees which can live 2000 years. The Mauri used the gum in the tree as an ingredient in the ink for their famous tattoos.  There are many trees with incredible longevity here and I wonder if its because this is the last place homo sapiens arrived.. basically, we kill everything big when we arrive in a place. The Europeans arrived 200 years ago and the destruction of the Kauri really started. Now only 1-3% of the original population still stand.

We continued through the forest and went to the southern edge where we found another beautiful campground. The campgrounds here are destinations in themselves. This one had a playground, a nature trail, a swimming hole with a rope swing, and a long zip line featured below. We all took many turns on the zip line.