Thursday - beach, clams and trees

We slept so well we were in bed for 12 hours! When we finally were up our first port of call was the Kaipoua Forest visitors centre. We didn't find much information there, only photos stuck on a wall above our heads too high to see.  We did see what we think was a photo of our current lodgings before it was moved here. We then decided to drive further south to the Kai Iwi lakes, where we took the coastal path from Lake Waikere to the beach. The walk was mainly through cattle fields and over stiles until very close to the beach. 

 A lovely beach, and we only saw one other person the whole time we were there, and he went past close to the waterline on a small motorcycle. We had sandwiches for lunch, then discovered clams in the sand, so we gathered quite a few and put them into a bag ready to try later. They really do squirt at you as you dig them up.

 We drove north back to the forest, and went to the Kauri Walks area. An amazing section of forest, with large kauri trees in all directions. Walked to the Yakas tree first (girth 12.29m, trunk volume 133.2 cu m.), and gave it a hug. Then visited Cathedral Grove. The trees do almost seem spiritual, perhaps because of their age, and perhaps because they were there before the first settlers. 

Our next walk was to the Four Sisters trees, four large trees growing so close together their lower sections have virtually joined together at ground level. Our last visit on this walk was to Te Matua Ngahere, called the Father of the Forest (girth 16.41m, trunk volume 208.1 cu m). This is the second largest tree in NZ.

Finally we drove up the road to visit Tane Mahuta (girth 17.7m, trunk volume 244.5 cu m.) known as the God of the Forest, and the largest tree in NZ. Though it's not known exactly how old this tree is, it's about 2000 years old, and therefore was probably a seedling when Jesus walked the earth. It was already about 1300 years old when the first Maori, and therefore the first human settlers in this island, landed in NZ.

Back to our own kauri cottage, where we put the clams we had gathered into cold water to try and remove some of the sand from them. No cookbook, and no internet, so I cooked them the same as I would mussels, steamed in white wine with onion and garlic. All the shells opened with no problems, so I scooped the clams out, then added cream to make a chowder. Though they tasted OK, and the sauce was delicious, we obviously need to spend longer on the sand removal stage. Every mouthful was crunchy with sand, so we ended up just drinking the sauce. Still left a layer of sand in the bottom of the bowls!  We followed the clams with a pasta bake, with no sand!

Tomorrow we go to the Kauri Museum to learn more about these magnificent trees.