Tane Mahuta
Today was our last full day in NZ. We went to the Waiputua Forest which contains a number of Kauri trees. The Kauri is a huge native tree many of which have been cut down. Tane Mahuta is thought to be the largest one and is known as "The God of the Forest". The trunk was about 17 meters in girth and about 51 meters high. We saw several other huge ones as well. It's pretty hard to get a sense of how big it is in a photograph because you can't get too close to them. Apparently the feeding roots are close to the ground and walking around may damage them.
On the way back we drove through some pretty isolated area hoping to find lunch. Eventually we found an interesting takeout place. They had various specials such as 4 burgers, 4 sets of fries, etc. We saw several people come in to order some of these and take them away - they were wrapped in newspaper and were pretty good sized parcels. I'd assume that more than one person was going to eat them. They also had a seafood special with 1 fish, 1 oyster, 1 squid ring, 1 mussel, 1 crabclaw...
This has been a great trip but we are about ready to go home. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we drive back to Auckland (stopping to pickup the phone charger and memory card reader), turn in the car and fly back. We'll get a bit of Tuesday on the plane probably before we've gone to sleep before it turns Wednesday again. It will be a long day since this time we aren't spending the night in LA.
On the way back we drove through some pretty isolated area hoping to find lunch. Eventually we found an interesting takeout place. They had various specials such as 4 burgers, 4 sets of fries, etc. We saw several people come in to order some of these and take them away - they were wrapped in newspaper and were pretty good sized parcels. I'd assume that more than one person was going to eat them. They also had a seafood special with 1 fish, 1 oyster, 1 squid ring, 1 mussel, 1 crabclaw...
This has been a great trip but we are about ready to go home. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we drive back to Auckland (stopping to pickup the phone charger and memory card reader), turn in the car and fly back. We'll get a bit of Tuesday on the plane probably before we've gone to sleep before it turns Wednesday again. It will be a long day since this time we aren't spending the night in LA.