The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 3, Issue 4 (August 1, 1928)
Wonderful Waipoua — The New Forest Road
Wonderful Waipoua
The New Forest Road
“Old trees in their living state are the only things money cannot command.”—Landor.
On the northern peninsula of New Zealand, near Dargaville, is the big tree country, where the stately kauri has been preserved for the nation in two wonderful forests, the Trounson National Park and Waipoua. Miss Morton tells the story of these wonderful trees.
(By Elsie K. Morton)
When summer comes, and Waipoua Forest echoes to the honking and hooting of motor cars, and tourists by the thousand crane their necks to spy the top of the giant kauris, few will give a thought to those who even now are tackling the heartbreaking work of making a road in the depth of winter. All through the short, dark days, gangs of men have been employed at quarrying, crushing, and laying metal on the awful clay morass that stretches through the heart of the forest.
Some day a poet will write a fitting ode to “The Roadmakers of New Zealand,” immortalising the work they have done in making this country habitable. No one who has not travelled in the backblocks in winter, can realise the magnitude of their task, fighting and working as they must, against the fury of the elements. Bridges washed away in sudden flood, landslides and slips piling up tons of rock and debris, sweeping away in brief moments the laborious work of months, the rigours of camp-life in the depth of winter, cut off for months from all the pleasures and comforts of civilisation—yes, I think our backblocks roadmakers might well be sung by a national poet!
But Waipou Forest was a paradise when I passed down that woodland way in the full beauty of midsummer. A large portion of the road had received a running coat of metal, the rest was hard-packed clay, firm and smooth, a perfect motoring road.
All I heard of the beauty of Wonderful Waipoua proved less than the truth. No hurried daytripper was I, no glimpsing the glories of that splendid forest from beneath the hood of a motor car. For a week, I lived on the outskirts of the forest; every day I rode or tramped those winding ways, left the beaten track, and pushed into the heart of the forest. I knew before I left Auckland those simple facts that every good tourist commits to memory beforehand—distance from Auckland, 160 miles, from Dargaville 30 miles, total length of road through the forest sixteen miles, total area 40,606 acres. I had great pleasure in forgetting all these impressive details the moment the wonder and beauty of Waipoua was unfolded before my eyes. One does not think of statistics when brought face to face with one of the sublime works of the Almighty, and such, surely, is the only fitting designation for Waipoua. Other splendid forests there are in New Zealand, many another magnificent bush road, but nowhere else in this land is there a road that runs mile after mile through groves of virgin kauri forest… . Huge grey trunks, flecked with amber light, straight as the columns of some ancient temple, rise from the side of the road, the small, dark foliage spreading out from the crown in stately canopy. From the innumerable twists and turns of the road magnificent panoramas of forest-clad ranges unfold, each crest and spur crowned with collonade of lofty grey columns, rising massive, majestic, above a that company of lesser giants of the forest. The hillsides and valleys are massed with lovely ponga ferns and nikau palms, and a delicate carpet of crepe and kidney ferns is spread beneath the forest trees. When the scars of roadmaking all are healed, and Nature has repaired the ravage, how thrice-lovely will be the Waipoua Forest road! For here the growth is extraordinarily luxuriant, owing to the heavy rainfall (as high as 146 inches in a year).
Here are many rare ferns, shrubs and orchids, here you may find all your old favourites, clematis, hoheria, tawhara, taraire, astelia, miro, kowhai, growing more freely, flowering more luxuriantly than in any forests of more southerly latitude. When the clay banks are clothed once more in beauty of lacing ferns and creepers, when the tuis and fantails and pigeons have regained confidence and come back from the heart of the forest, then indeed will the full beauty of Waipoua be made manifest. The thunder of falling trees and roar of blasting has brought fear to the little feathered folk, so long unmolested by man. They have seen the vast guardians of their world crash to earth, seen the solid hillsides quake and split, and have fled in terror to the sheltering arms of Tane, Father of the Forest.
In the coming summer thousands will pass down the Waipoua road, but only to those who linger awhile will be vouchsafed the full beauty of the forest. So leave the beaten road, with its mighty guardians rearing their proud heads high in the sky, and come with me over the fallen log across the Wairau Creek, down the little red-leafed track that leads to mighty Ahuatane, “Spirit of the Forest,” monarch supreme of that forest kingdom.
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“The Place is all Awave with Trees.”
—E. B. Browning.
Roadmaker's Tent in the Heart of the Waipoua Forest.
A little sigh goes rippling through his mighty branches, like waves at sunset on a distant shore: silence settles over the forest a little deeper… . What tidings of world-shaking woe, of joy, of terror, of amazing things wrought by man, will the voices of the forest have whispered to mighty Ahuatane, ere that majestic head be laid low?