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Published: August 6th 2007
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The Four Sisters tree
Named because one set of roots gave life to four seperate trees Today we did a lot of driving - heading towards the Goat Island on the east coast (via the west coast!) where we planned on doing some snorkeling. First we stopped off at Waipoua forest to see the biggest trees in New Zealand. The Kauri trees are worshipped by the Maoris because they believe that they are descended from them (the biggest Kauri tree in NZ, Tane, was the son of the sky and the earth gods and ripped the two apart, creating life!). "Tane is the giver of life and all creatures are his children". Estimating the age of Kauri trees is difficult but Tane is supposedly said to have seeded around 2000 years ago during Christ's time!
To give an example of how big these trees are here are some of the dimensions of Tane Mahuta:
Trunk height: 17.7m
Total height: 51.5m
Trunk girth: 13.8m
Trunk volume: 244.5m*3
When in the forest, we had to tread carefully because the feeding roots are extremely small and vulnerable compared to these huge trees.
After the Waipoua forest, what was a straightforward drive ended up very complicated after we took one small turn and 2 hours later arrived
at the end of a peninsula! (There aren’t many roads in NZ). Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the Goat Island until the evening, so we had to put our snorkeling on hold for a day.
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