12/24/07 – Christmas Eve Day!
Today we went on an all day trip to the west coast to go to the Waipoua Kauri Forest. The Kauri trees are like the redwood trees in California. They are very old and although they don’t grow to be as tall as redwoods (they only grow until they are taller than the second forest canopy), they are super wide. We went to see Tane Mahuta, which is the Maori god of the forest. He is 2,000 years old and so incredibly huge. He actually has an ecosystem up in his tree limbs. He is 51 meters tall and his branches are so huge, he has like 30 plants and trees growing out of him. He is the tallest Kauri tree in New Zealand, but not the oldest. The oldest one is Te Matua Ngahere, who is the Father of the Forest, but we didn’t get to see him because he is protected.
We had a Maori guide who took us through the forest and told us of all the history. When we were at Tane Mahuta he did some prayers and singing in the Maori language. They are very spiritual. They have gods for many things, like god of the forest, god of the land, and so on, so they pray and sing a lot when they are there to say greetings to the god.
After the forest, we went to overlook the Hokianga harbour, which feeds out to the Tasman Sea. It was absolutely beautiful. On the other side of the harbour were huge sand dunes, which apparently were once in another location. At one point, there was a huge natural explosion of some sort that blew the sand dunes to the harbour. You can actually body surf down the dunes into the water, but we didn’t have time for that.
Then we ate lunch in the tiny town by the harbour, Opononi, at a little café that has really good burgers. Paul and I had a fish burger, and it was the best fish sandwich I’ve ever had! It had heaps (all the kiwis and ozzies always use the word “heaps”, like we use the word “tons”) of fish and just a little breading, and the tartare sauce was really good too. YUM!
In the town, there is a status of Opo the dolphin, who was a wild dolphin that came into the Hokianga harbour in the summer of 1955 and became so tame that kids could swim with him. He ended up dying in the winter of 1956, but before then, people would come from all over to see him. He would find bottles at the bottom of the harbour and bring them up and play with them. Dolphins are so crazy smart and playful! There was some controversy about his death. Some thought that some fishermen killed him with a little explosive that they used for catching fish because he was eating their fish. So sad.
After lunch, we drove to a car ferry so that we could drive back to Paihia on a different route to learn more history. Our driver knew so much history, but of course, I can hardly remember any of it! I have such a bad memory for those kinds of things. But we did go to this town where we saw the oldest bridge in New Zealand. It was so funny. It was about 6 feet wide and just went over a creek. It had a frame of rocks, but most of it was dirt and grass. Too funny.
There was a mother (Graces) and 2 kids (Gabby and Hester) with us on the tour, and the little girl Hester was so cute! She kept hugging me and Jenny and holding our hands. I totally want a little girl! Anyway, they made the trip more fun because they were really excited about everything.
When we got back to Paihia, we just took it easy because we were so tired from the tour. After eating a small dinner in the apartment (I was still full from lunch!), Jenny and I went down to the Village Green to listen to them sing Christmas Carols. It was a kind of strange, but fun too. One guy came out and did a rap about Jesus Christ. It actually wasn’t bad, but definitely a little strange. Then we watched Love Actually on tv and went to bed. It was a good day.
Check out our pics for the day:
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