WE'RE PLANNING ANOTHER TRIP

Croatia, Albania, Montenegro, Greece, Iran, Syria, & Turkey

Mary's Iran visa photo

Mary's Iran visa photo

Bob's Iran visa photo

Bob's Iran visa photo

Friday, February 26, 2010

Kauri Trees

When we were in the Northland of NZ, we learned the importance of the kauri trees. The kauri is a huge tree, not as big as the California redwoods, but grows to 165 feet tall and 15 feet in diameter. I saw an old photo of 51 people standing on a karui stump that had been cut down.
As the kauri tree grows, the bottom branches fall off, making the bottom half of the lumber knot free. Some times the first branch is 65 feet high. Because of the tight grain and knot free this was prized wood for making tall ship masks.
The exploitation of the forests and the clearing of land for farming decimated most of the kauri forests. Cutting down a kauri tree is no longer allowed. We went to one of the few remaining kauri forest, the Waipoua Forest, to see ‘Tane Mahuta’ the largest kauri tree in NZ (they name the large kauri trees).  At 1500 years old, Tane Mahuta is called ‘father of the forest’. We also got to see ‘Te Matua Ngahere’ and ‘McGregor Kauri’ the second and third largest kauri’s. They have an excellent kauri museum.

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