Kairoua Forest

Between Paihia and Waitomo we decided to visit Kairoua Forest. You can take a short walk here and imagine that the New Zealand forests used to be full of kauri, which are conifers that are over fifty meters high that were an important foundation of the economy of this area. You can see several giant kauri, including the Matua Ngahere (The Father of the Forest), which is possibly the oldest tree in New Zealand at almost 4000 years old and it has a trunk that's five feet in diameter. You can also see The Four Sisters, The Tree Ghost, which is the second largest tree, Tane Mahuta, which has the name of the God of the trees and is even taller than the Father of the Forest, but it's only 2200 years old.