We arrived in time to eat a quick dinner and go on a guided night walk tour of the Trounson Kauri Forest. The wind was howling that night. We tried hard to listen for the rustling of kiwi looking for dinner under the leaves, but we couldn’t hear much other than the wind. The kiwi usually chatter to each other quite a bit at night, but, again, we heard nothing but the wind. Our guide was successful at spotting one kiwi that spooked immediately and took off deeper into the forest. Xavier and Quentin were lucky enough to see him for a moment as he darted off, but the rest of us missed it. However, our guide also pointed out two massive eels moving about in streams, some rare kauri snails and a few giant wetas (very large NZ grasshoppers) hanging out on a decaying log. It was a fun experience to walk through the woods at night with glow worms sprinkled amongst the bushes.
The next day, we woke up to heavy downpours, but the rain eased and by 10 o’clock, the kids had put on their togs and headed for the river where they played on the holiday park’s inner tube for the morning. The day was cloudy and drizzly, but it was warm, so we managed.
After lunch, we drove to the biggest kauri trees in the Waipoua Forest. The drive alone is jaw-dropping. The road twists through dense, jungle-like terrain and fairly frequently, you can spy an enormous kauri standing in the middle of the tangle of leaves. The largest kauri is named “Tane Mahuta”, Lord of the Forest and is about 1,500 years old. The second largest is actually older (it’s about 2000 years old!) and quite a bit wider than the biggest one, but not as tall or elegant. Their size, their shape and their skin (a mottled bark that sheds periodically) make them artistic masterpieces.
After viewing the trees, we drove up a back road to a shop named the Labyrinth Woodworks, tucked away in the woods. A large, bearded man named Louis entertained our children for an hour with all sorts of puzzles and magic tricks while we looked over all the interesting wooden toys in his hexagonal store. We are now convinced that Santa and Mrs. Claus have left the North Pole and now reside in a remote magical forest in New Zealand. They have a secret stash of elves who make wooden toys deep in the privacy of their own kauri forest.
We went back to the holiday park, played a little, ate some dinner and headed back over to do our own unguided night tour walk of the Trounson Kauri Park. We left earlier than we had the night before and it wasn’t quite dark yet. As we stepped into the forest, it grew darker, of course. We had five lousy flashlights, but they were good enough for us to see the trail even if they weren’t powerful enough to pick out kiwi in the bush. Almost immediately, we heard them. We heard a female kiwi call and a male kiwi call. Suddenly, the forest grew absolutely silent. The kiwi quieted and the cicadas hushed all at once. We continued our walk and then heard the very eerie moan of cattle in the pasture next to the forest. It is good that the kids have never seen the “Blair Witch Project” – it was a creepy and bone-chilling noise. Hand in hand, we retraced our steps from the night before. We heard more kiwi and more moaning cattle. We found some eels and some kokopus, a nocturnal NZ fish. We saw yet more glow worms and wetas. It was amazing.
