eNZed - day 3 (17-5-5)

Woke up after a night of pouring rain to a soft sunrise on a glassy still lake. We had some P.B., Nutella, and banana sandwiches (mmm.. tasty) and took a bunch of pics of the lake and surrounding areas before heading straight to the 90 Mile Beach (90 miles! Of Beach! Can you imagine!?). Of course, since its NZ, the beach also doubles as a road (speed limit 100 - km/h of course).






A and Dave scampered around barefoot, but I was enjoying the little bit of extra warmth keeping my boots on provided. We saw so many cool seashells - I wanted to keep all of them, but interestingly enough, once they were in my hand and not on the beach, half buried in sand, they just lost most of the magic that made them so beautiful.It rained off and on, which always caused a flurry of camera hiding by A and Dave.. it's so nice having trip photographers, but not being one =). The waves were very different than Hawaii. they broke so far away from the beach but just kept rolling and rolling all flat and wide.. reminded me of Lake Michigan.Just when we were enjoying the solitude, a truck zoomed by crushing a pretty iridescent blue paua (pow-uh) shell, reminding us about the road thing. Must be more fun when you're actually in the car. We walked around a while longer, A looking for the perfect shell for her collection, but only getting broken ones. We made a nice collage of the shells on the sand, then it was off to the next best thing.. GIANT KAURI TREES!! This of course meant lazily meandering in the direction of the kauris (cow-ree) while taking 100's of pictures =).

We stopped for our standard snack of french bread with balsamic and olive oil in the rain ont he edge of Mangamuka Gorge Scenic Reserve (in the rain),




then again at the overlook at Omapere and actually got to see the sun!!

We were so excited we didn't want to leave, but the kauri's were beckoning..

The first kauri - Tane Mahuta (tah-nay-mah-hoo-tuh), meaning God of the Forest - is 2000 years old! I can't remember quite how tall the sign said it was, but I think the trunk had a girth of some 11m, maybe it was 50m tall. While we were standing in awe, we met a nice couple from somewhere else in NZ and they told us all about the indestructible nature of kauri wood as a building material. Apparently, that's why there's so few of them left. It also doesn't help that if you walk around the ground where they have roots, the trees die. Everybody has to walk on boardwalks. It was amazing walking around the bend to see this giant tree come looming out at us. It was stunning. We were still at quite a distance (cause of the roots, I guess) but it was enormous. It was difficult imagining just how large the tree actually was. Each branch at the top was the size of the biggest oldest trees in Michigan or Hawaii (except the banyans). We sat and contemplated until hunger won over. A and I got grilled cheese at the trailer grill at the parking area (a was disappointed they only had "kiwi made" ice cream and not "kiwi flavored" ice cream.. crap!), then we were off to the the oldest widest kauri.. this one was just the tallest!


After seeing the Four Sisters Kauris, it was Te Matua Ngahere (tay-ma-too-ah-nnngah-hee-ree) - which means "Father of the Forest" that was to get our attention. This Kauri tree was 16.41m in girth, 29.9m in height, with a trunk volume of 208.1m^3, and a trunk height of 10.21m (this was all on the sign- i took a picture of this one)! It is 3000 years old! We had thought that Tane Mahuta was big... well, come to find out, he's just tall ("you ain't so big.... you just tall, that's about all" - little big boss man for ya's..) cause this one... this one.. is HUGE! Don't know what to say other than just, WOW. Standing there, it was noticable that being in the presence of a tree that big and old.. just inspired silence. All I could think about was the fact that as the tree grows, it's stationary, no moving around the forest.. it just goes up and out very slowly. In contrast with that, there's us: always rushing about here and there, trying this and that, needing to make this and destroy that.. We seem like ultra fast forward while staring transfixed by the giant. It's nice feeling the idea of slowing down - if that makes any sense.

Of course, all of the things we're looking at are just things to do between meals.. so it was off to Dargaville for gas and eats. The sunset was amazing this evening, but A and I were too hungry to stop and take pics.. poor Dave, he looked like someone shot his puppy when A joked, "hey look a scenic pull-off!" We finally caved since the clouds were so pretty and Dave looked so grumpy.

We saw one of the many NZ road signs that were so ammusing - just a random "!" on one of those orange diamond road signs.. everytime we saw one, it seemed like we should be aware of something, paying attention at least.. but nothing ever presented itself, so consequently, they were ignored. THIS time, though, the pavement ended abruptly. No, "hey, we tore up the road, maybe you'd like to know so you can slow down.." Just "Shit! Where'd the road go!?" After we got under control (and noticed we were the eonly ones on the road who seemed to think this was a reason to slow down) this was hilarious. Can't really describe why, but it was =).

Once we got into Dargaville, we cornered the gas station girl (so many full service stations!) and asked her where a good place to eat was. She seems very suprised and rather flustered (don't know why, maybe Dave was just so dashing with his cute american accent.. *grin*.. ) but finally got out that a place called "Blah Blah Blahs" was where we should go. Turned out they had excellent food... and feijoa vodka.. oh yeah! Dave and A had pizza with Kumara (q-mar-uh) potatoes on it and I had a huge bowl of soup, also with Kumaras.. *slurp!*

We slept beside the mouth of the Wairoa (why-ro-uh) River outside Dargaville and the stars actually came out. It was beautiful! Dave took star pics and A and I played rummi until it was time to sleep.

To look at all the pics from Day 3, click here!