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| Tane Mahuta |
State Highway 12 runs down the North
Island's west coast from the Hokianga Harbour to Dargaville and the upper
reaches of the Kaipara Harbour. While SH
1 takes motorists along the more direct route from the top of the North Island
to Auckland, SH 12 is more of a local road.
It winds through the Waipoua Forest, then it is all farming country to
Dargaville, a town whose claim to fame is being New Zealand's kumara (sweet
potato) capital.
The Kaipara Harbour's tentacles reach up to Dargaville, east
to Matakohe and Maungaturoto, as well as wiggling across to Port Albert and
Atiu Creek. Its southern reaches spread
down to Helensville, a half hour's drive from Auckland.
We set off to explore the Kaipara after visiting the
Hokianga Harbour. We wondered how
different the two waterways would be.
But first we went off to visit the largest living kauri tree in the
world, Tane Mahuta.
Māori legends tell how Tane Mahuta brought light into the
world. His parents Ranginui (sky father)
and Papatuanuku (earth mother) were in a tight embrace but Tane, craving light
and space, forced them apart. Tane
Mahuta became 'lord of the forest', king of all that grows and lives
there.
Kauri trees once grew thickly in this area. Huge straight-trunked giants grew right down
to the edges of the rivers and harbours.
European settlers cut down the trees in their thousands and now only a
few specimens remain, treasured remnants of the forests of old. Tane Mahuta is the most famous of these but
there are others nearby worth a visit too.
We came to the sign for Tane Mahuta 18 kilometres south
of Omapere, where SH 12 wound between thickly wooded forests of rimu, northern
rata and kauri. There were car parking
areas and some roadside parking where we managed to squeeze Tangaroa in. Our first glimpse of the tree was
misleading. Only when we saw people near
its base did we realise how truly huge Tane Mahuta was. The trunk soared to a height of more than 51
metres, while its girth was over thirteen metres. We craned our necks looking up from wooden
boardwalk and marvelled. Tane Mahuta is
estimated to be between 1,250 and 2,500 years old and it is to be hoped that he
survives for many more years.
Information explained that Tane Mahuta was first noted in
the 1920s when surveyors and men building the road came across the giant. One of these bushmen, Nicholas Yakas, gave
his name to one of the other notable kauri in the Waipoua Forest, the Yakas
Kauri. Further along the road was
another parking area where three other walks started. These were to the Yakas Kauri, the Four
Sisters and to Te Matua Ngahere.
The Yakas walk takes around one and a half hours return,
the track to the Four Sisters takes 20 minutes (return) and the Te Matua
Ngahere walk is 40 minutes. This last
tree is second in size to Tane Mahuta, being almost thirty metres in
height. Its name means father of the forest,
and it is of a similar age to Tane Mahuta.
We decided to visit the Four Sisters, four tall trees growing closely
together, and Te Matua Ngahere, saving the Yakas Kauri for another time. All the walks were well signed and took us
through deep native forest with stands of kauri and mixed hardwoods,
interspersed with ferns and the weird-looking, spiky, neinei and kiekie plants.
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| Kauri at Trounson Park |
Trounson Kauri Park, further down the road is one of
DOC's five 'mainland islands'—areas that are either fenced or where predators
are intensively trapped so that native wildlife can thrive. This 586 hectare reserve was gifted by an
early settler, James Trounson, and opened in 1921. It became a mainland island in 1995 and
supports endangered North Island brown kiwi as well as kererū, bats and kauri
snails. There is a DOC campsite here but
we didn't stay because we wanted to visit the Kai Iwi Lakes.
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| Kayaking at Kai Iwi Lakes |
We took the turn about 25 kilometres north of Dargaville
and headed for the coast. There are
three freshwater lakes that make up Kai Iwi, just inland of Ripiro Beach. This 100- kilometre-long beach is New
Zealand's longest driveable beach and the site of many shipwrecks. (Relics from some of these can be seen at
Dargaville Museum). The sand stretches
as far as the eye can see, interrupted at just one spot, the towering cliffs of
Maunganui Bluff, just to the north.
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| Walking to Mangonui Bluff |
After parking Tangaroa
at the campground we set off to walk to Maunganui Bluff. From the camp we strolled across farmland for
about two kilometres before arriving at the dunes that fringe the beach. From here white sand stretched to the hazy
distance and we set off northwards. It
took about an hour and a half to reach the base of Maunganui Bluff, which rose
460 metres from the beach. After a
picnic lunch by a waterfall (where Malcolm ruined a leather hat by using it to
catch the cold water to throw over himself, in an effort to cool down) we
walked back along the beach to Kai Iwi Lakes.
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| Old Wharf at Dargaville |
Our next stop was the township of Dargaville, gateway to
the Kaipara. The Kaipara District is a
huge area and the harbour is New Zealand's biggest—and one of the largest in
the world. At high tide, water covers
409 square kilometres, though almost half is exposed as mudflats when the tide
is out. Māori used the waterways of the
Kaipara extensively—large sailing canoes were in use when the first settlers
arrived—though their name for the harbour entrance, translated as many widows
from drowning, attests to the treacherous nature of the Kaipara bar and
shifting sand banks. Locals call the
entrance to the harbour 'the graveyard'.
At least 43 ships have been wrecked there, some sources say 110. One of the first was reputed to be the waka Māhuhu, which overturned at the Kaipara
entrance on its arrival from Hawaiki.
The last was the yacht Aosky,
wrecked in 1994.
When the first Pakehā settlers arrived in the Kaipara in
the 1840s there were few Māori living there.
Ngāpuhi warriors had decimated the local tribe, the Ngāti Whātua, in
1825. William Gittos, an early
missionary, converted the Māori to Christianity and they welcomed the first
settlers. Soon dwellings sprang up at
Dargaville, Matakohe, Port Albert and along other branches of the harbour.
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| Historic boat builder's shed at the NZMCA Park at Dargaville |
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| The NZMCA Park at Dargaville |
We discovered that
Dargaville was named after Joseph Dargaville, an early local politician and
timber merchant. During the nineteenth
century when much of the area's kauri forests were felled and kauri gum was dug
from the ground, Dargaville was briefly a boom town. Nowadays Dargaville is a
quiet backwater, mainly famous for its kumara.
It has a small museum, where, in the gumdiggers hall, we learned more
about life on the gumfields. There was
also a pioneer hall, a collections hall (with everything from birds eggs to
boomerangs), a maritime hall and a Māori hall.
Here we admired a 16 metre-long canoe carved from kauri in pre-European
times. It was uncovered from the
shifting sands near Pouto around 1900.
One of the museum's most interesting artefacts was the
carving called Pouto Ki Rongomaraeroa.
This is a very ancient carving that once stood guardian to a Māori
village, covered long ago by sand but briefly uncovered in 1991. Some locals believed it to be a settlement of
the Waitaha people, supposed to pre-date Māori, because of its early carving
style but until it is carbon-dated its provenance is unknown. Whatever, I felt the carving had a presence
that made the hair on the back of my head stand up. It exuded mystery.
From Dargaville we drove south along SH 12 towards
Ruawai, passing the roadside billboards that asked, 'Did ya get ya kumara?' Ninety-five percent of New Zealand's kumara
crop is grown in the Dargaville area, the soil and temperatures in the region
are perfect for its growth. What we
didn't realise until later was that Dargaville has its own kumara theme park
called the Kumara Box. Here you can
watch an hour-long show and have a 'train' ride, sitting in brightly coloured
oil drum carriages, pulled along by a tractor.
It is also a campervan park.
We'll definitely check the place out next time we are in the area.
We were fascinated by the perfect cone
of Tokatoka that we could see in the distance and decided to climb to the
summit. But before we got there we came
to a massive rocky outcrop called Maungaraho Rock. There was a parking area and a sign
advertising a track so we decided to climb this first. The path led through the bush then up the
steep sides of the rock. It was more of
a climb than a walk, though there were ropes and ladders to help. The summit was surmounted by a trig and from
here we had views across the Kaipara to the Tangihua Range. After we had scrambled back down we decided
that we had done enough climbing for one day and Tokatoka remains to be
conquered.
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| Inside Matakohe Kauri Museum |
We had enjoyed Dargaville Museum but could have spent the
whole day in Matakohe Museum. If you
only visit one museum in Northland it should be this one! The extensive series of galleries illustrated
every aspect of kauri—from the world's largest kauri slab (22.5 metres long) to
the biggest collection of polished and carved kauri gum in the world. Here we saw rings showing the actual size of
once-known, but now felled, kauri—of whom Tane Mahuta is only a little
brother. There was some beautifully
crafted kauri furniture—and the paraphernalia needed to produce it, including
felling and milling equipment and a working sawmill. There was even a kauri bath!
The Kauri gum display entranced us. We gazed at kauri gum pieces with insects and
lizards inside, gum crafted into ornate jewellery, a sailing ship, the bust of
a Māori warrior, a fantasy castle, gum made into fine strands and plaited into
a hairpiece and much more. I could
imagine a gum digger, sitting outside his hut a hundred and fifty years ago,
carving a piece of kauri gum into a heart shaped bead, perhaps to give to a
loved one.
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| At Matakohe Museum |
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| This museum exhibit shows the size of known kauri trees |
Just past the Kauri Museum we turned right and drove down
the Pahi Peninsula. It is a quiet spot
now (except on Regatta Day, held on Anniversary Weekend each year since 1887)
but was once a hub for the colonists in the Kaipara. Among the early settlers in the Pahi area
were the almost penniless aristocrat, Viscomte de Labrosse, who worked as a
labourer; Heathcote Jackman, planter of extensive vineyards growing Pinot and
Cabernet Sauvignon grape varieties; and the politicians Henry Scotland and
Gordon Coates, the latter being New Zealand's first native-born Prime
Minister. There is a picturesque old
hotel and a holiday park right on the waterfront but I thought the most amazing
thing about Pahi was the 152 year-old Moreton Bay fig tree. Planted in 1865 it spreads its huge boughs
and its massive buttressed roots an impressive distance.
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| The Moreton Bay Fig Tree at Pahi |
The Kaipara harbour was hard to explore. Its inlets pierced the land so deeply that
travelling by boat must be the most satisfactory way. We had to keep to the roads of course, so
found ourselves turning in to explore from various places along the
highways. Port Albert was signposted
from Wellsford and we followed minor roads before finding the tiny settlement. It was harder still for the original
'Albertlanders' when they arrived from England, determined to settle and make
new lives in the colony. Back then there
were no roads in the area and the first colonists made their way from Auckland up
the coast and through the bush. Others
went to Helensville, then navigated through the maze of waterways to the spot
they thought the 'town' should be. It
was all roughly surveyed but other than that there was nothing for the
Albertlanders to come to—they had to set about making the settlement
themselves. Nowadays there is little to
show that the harbour-side was once a bustling place. There's a jetty, a boat ramp and some
memorial plaques outlining the history of the Albertlanders.
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| Historic Port Albert |
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| Pretty Minniesdale Church near Atiu Creek |
We had hoped to stay in the overnight parking at Atiu
Creek Regional Park further along the road but, at nine metres in length, Tangaroa was too long to access the
driveway, so we unhooked the car and went to explore. Atiu Creek's 843-hectare block was gifted to
the Auckland Council a decade ago and boasts farmland, native bush, wetlands
and breathtaking views of the Kaipara Harbour.
It would have been wonderful to have woken up here but, since we
couldn't, we made the best of it and took a walk along the Oruawharo River
Trail, looping back up the Clearfell Track.
This walk took us less than two hours and was an easy stroll, except for
the last part which was an uphill puff.
We forgot to be out of breath when we got to the top though, because
there we saw majestic carved pou standing guardian over the sacred sites
below. A sense of the spiritual imbues
the Kaipara, possibly because it is so undeveloped. This, together with its interesting history
and varied scenery had made it a wonderful area to explore.
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| Atiu Creek |
Information about places mentioned in this post - correct at time of writing
Walks
- Waipoua Forest
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/northland/places/waipoua-forest/
Tane Mahuta Walk: 5 min
one way, easiest: short walk
Four Sisters Loop: 10 min,
easiest: short walk
Te Matua Ngahere Walk: 20
min one way, easiest: short walk
Access: SH 12, 45 km
north of Dargaville
- · Trounson Kauri Park
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/northland/places/trounson-kauri-park/
Loop Track: 40 min,
easiest: short walk
Access: 990, Trounson
Park Rd, Donnellys Crossing
- ·
Manganui Bluff Track
approx 3 km, 1.5-2 hours,
one way, mostly along beach
Access: Kai Iwi Lakes,
- ·
Maungaroho Rock
45 min loop around base,
30 min to top, easy walking track (summit track tricky in places)
Access: Maungaroho Rock
Rd, Arupohue
- Atiu Creek Regional Park
http://regionalparks.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/atiucreekregionalpark
There are a large network
of tracks, we walked part of the Oruawharo River Trail and looped back along
the Clearfell Track. This was approx 2
km, 1.5 hr
Access: Run Rd, Tapora
Gates open summer 6.00
am-9.00 pm, winter 6.00 am-7.00 pm
Places to visit
- ·
Dargaville Museum
32, Mount Wesley Coast
Rd, Dargaville
http://www.dargavillemuseum.co.nz
Hours: November-March
9.00 am-5.00 pm, April-October 9.00 am-4.00 pm
Entry price: adult $15,
senior $12, child $5
- ·
The Kauri Museum
5, Church Rd, Matakohe
www.kau.nz
Hours: 9.00 am-5.00 pm
daily
Entry price: adult $25,
senior and student $20, child $8
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