Paihia, Russell and the Kauri Forest

This morning we caught the 9:30 water ferry from Paihia to Russell, a sleepy little village across the Bay of Islands. 

Russell was the first capital of New Zealand (then called New South Wales by the English settlers).  We visited Christ Church there.  The building was built in 1836 and is the oldest church in New Zealand still in use. It has musket ball holes in the facade dating back to struggles between the Maori and the English Navy who fired on the church from the bay while the Maori were plundering the town. 


There is a little museum there showing the history of the area including a whale boat from the first Europeans who came for seals and whale blubber. This boat would have been dispatched from a larger ship when a whale was spotted. Many of these boats were destroyed in the battle with the whale.  Whales are now protected in
New Zealand.  

Captain Cook sailed from Tahiti following the transit of Venus looking for a possible southern continent and first sighted New Zealand in October of 1769.  The museum had a 1/5 size reproduction of Captain Cook's ship the Endeavor from this exploration.  

There was a row of Pohutukawa trees lining the

waterfront in Russell.  They were planted by school children from the Russell school in 1930 to beautify the town.  I thought they looked like the live oak trees from Emerald Isle. 


Back in Paihia, we drove by the Treaty Grounds where the original treaty was signed between the English and the Maori. In the museum this treaty was said to claim

the land for the Queen with the name of New South Wales including any other land they might discover.  However other places this treaty was referred to,  it was said to establish a partnership for peace between the Maori and English. In current time, there is a lot of honor preservation done for the Maori culture and their language is still spoken. 

One of the reasons for coming to the North Land was to see

the giant Kauri tree, said to be the oldest living thing in the southern hemisphere.  So in the afternoon we drove west across the north land. We drove along the Hokianga Harbour to Omapere, where you can see the massive sand dunes overlooking the Tasman sea.  There was a light house/ radar station there which was originally established by an English sea captain who fell in love with a local Maori woman.  They set up the station and it was kept by their family for 80 years. The Maori religion recognizes deity in the sea and the forest.  There a monument here about the sea coming back and saving a stranded whale while two tribes argued about who it belonged to.

Then we turned south to the Waipoua Forest.  This is tribal Maori land, but it was open to the public.  They have built raised foot paths into the forest so that the tourist do not step on the fragile roots of the Kauri near the surface. 

Here we saw the huge named Kauri tree, Tane Mahuta (Lord of the Forest). This tree is so large that I had the first sense that it must have been built by Disney, but it is actually a living tree, proposed to be 2000 years old.  This tree is 45 feet in circumference!  We are a good bit away from it, so our pictures do not do it justice. 

Continuing south we came to a fascinating

store and artist workshop.  They have created an industry around the Kauri woodworking.  While the living Kauri trees are protected, they are using heavy equipment to pull old kauri trees out of local swamps.  The theory is that

these trees where all killed by a major flood, with a claim to be 45,000 years old. These  logs are the same size and density of the current Kauri and the roof of the building was supported by one.  We walked through an area where you could buy one of these huge slabs for using in your own construction.  They are making beautiful furniture, clocks, bowls, etc  from them.  This beautiful table was $4500.

We drove back to the east coast tonight to stay in Ruakaka where we have a room a the Island View Lodge for our last night in New Zealand. Our room over looks the Bream Bay and the Hen and Chick Islands.

 It also overlooks pasture and black cows; such a beautiful place. 

Joyce recommended the Outboard restaurant where we had fresh pan fried fish (some kind of white fish not familiar to us) and a tea pot for two. After dinner we had a swim in their indoor, heated pool and then went outside to see the Milky Way in the dark sky.

http://www.islandviewruakaka.co.nz/location-ruakaka.html