First Road Trip North - The Great Kauri Trees

I headed south from Hokianga Harbor and I made it to one of the best and largest Kauri forests in New Zealand, Waipoua Forest.  

 

The area is home to some of the largest and oldest Kauri trees and was really a beautiful spot to walk and see these amazing trees.

 

This tree was pretty amazing to see, it was just so big and so old, it made you realize how small we are and how young we are compared to something this old. There was a real presence to being near this tree.  

 

I was also impressed with the efforts that they have went to in protecting this area and these trees. Kauri tree roots are very shallow and people walking on them can kill the trees. Because of this and the value the country places on conservation they built board walks which were raised so that people will not harm the trees but we can walk out and see this giant. But their kiwi ingenuity doesn't end there, they really try to save all the trees they can, a lot of places would have just cut this leaning tree over to make the pathway clear and safe, but here they made a support beam for the leaning tree instead. All of this takes a lot of hard work and impressive design.

 

 

I really was wishing it hadn't started raining and that I had more time. I would have like to just sit and soak in the view here. I also like to think it would have improved my photos to not have to pull out the camera and try to keep it dry while snapping pictures. 

 

Standing right next to this tree was crazy to see. I have never seen the redwoods in California but now I really want to.



 

 

The Four Sisters were my favorite though. These four trees all spring from the same base and set of roots. Apparently there are lots of triplets but these four are much more rare.

Sadly the rain made some of my pictures blurry and me nervous, but the effect but kind of neat. 

 

 

This was the last big guy that I went to see, the rain was coming down pretty good by this point so I just got these two pictures, and I know there is a way to paste them together, but I haven't gotten that far in my self tutorial of photo editing. So you'll have to do a little imagining. His sign is a little blurry too.

 

While I won't say I'm a "tree hugger" by any means, all of these big beautiful trees seem so special they really do seem like something that should be protected and preserved. I'm glad the logging industry didn't get all of the "giants" :)