The Kauri Tree pt2
(also the end of our New Zealand Trip)
Straight after an Early breakfast, we went back to the “Kauri Museum” we were early and had to wait for a short while before it opened, but it was worth the wait.
Once we entered the Museum, we were treated to the sight of many beautiful wooden pieces of furniture and the largest slab (Raw untreated flat section of a tree from which they can make planks), I have ever seen, it was about 50 m long with an average width of 1.5 m and about 200 mm thick.
Going further into the museum, we saw a boardroom table, the top of which was made from one piece of timber 100 mm thick. This table was big enough for 16 people to sit at, and I think it would need all 16 people to lift it to move it as it was very heavy.
There were many large wooden carvings on show, including one very large “Tuatara” and another of a giant snail.
The next room we entered, took us back in time to when the giant Kauri Tree was actively being logged in this area, this was well before modern “Occupational Health and Safety Laws” were introduced.
The room was set up as a working timber mill, just as it would have been about 100 years ago, showing all the machinery, the unprotected drive belts, and platforms with no safety rails.
There were mannequins set to show people working, and from this I wondered how many major or life threatening injuries were sustained during the working life of this mill. It seemed to me to be a dangerous place to work, but it was interesting to me to see all of the machines set up as if they were actually being used.
There was also a log on display, showing just how it was transported from where it was felled, during the time logging was taking place. This log was cut down in 1960 and from the “Growth Rings” it is estimated that it started to grow in about 1100, so it was estimated to be over 800 years old, not quite as big as the tree used for a staircase at the “Ancient Kauri Kingdom.” This log was only 5m in length, 2.44 m in diameter, 7.93 in the girth, and only weighed 14.255 tonne. Along with the log, the chain saw blade used to cut it down was also displayed.
Timber was not the only thing being harvested in the forest at that time, gum, the hardened sap of the Kauri tree was also important, initially this was found buried where the old forests once were, but the supply had been exhausted so they had taken to injuring the tree to collect the sap directly, in a similar way that rubber is collected from Rubber Trees, only here they started to collect it from the top of these giant trees. Another dangerous job that only yielded low quality gum!
From that room we moved on to a display of a typical boarding house, a place where people would live while they were in town to conduct business like purchasing Gum or timber. Some people lived here while they saved to build their own home. It was interesting to see how these people lived 100 years ago.
It was almost lunch time when we reluctantly left the museum, but we had run out of time, as this was our last full day in New Zealand. We had to be in Auckland that night as we were booked on an early flight back to Sydney the following morning.
Leaving the museum this late already meant we had little time for sightseeing on our journey to Auckland and no time to explore Auckland itself.
By the time we found the airport and then a hotel near it it was dark, but as this was our last night in New Zealand we were determined to find a good restaurant for dinner, it happened to be an “Indian” establishment so the 3 of us settled down to a good Indian Curry before returning for our last night in New Zealand
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