TROUNSON KAURI PARK

Otago Witness, Issue 3860, 6 March 1928, Page 75

TROUNSON KAURI PARK

By

Margaret Edmond.

(Special for the Otago Witness.)

Six years ago the Trounson Kami Park, in the North Auckland Peninsula, was opened as a scenic reserve; but to how many lovers, of Nature, and especially of Nature as revealed in magnificent trees, is this beautiful park more than a name? To how many, indeed, is it even a name? From Dargaville it is a matter of only 22 miles north to the Trounson Kauri Park. Motor car is the most satisfactory method of transit. The run is a pleasant one through hills and valleys that were at one time kauri-covered, but are now used for the grazing of sheep and cattle, and the more fertile parts for the growing of grain, kumara, etc. Some swamp lands are also passed, and cabbage trees and flax grow in abundance. Keturning from the park, the load runs through the little gum-digging settlement of Aranga, where the Dalmatians and Austrians are working the gum lands. Amidst the huts are little mounds covered with bleached sacks, which, inquiry reveals, are piles of kauri gum worth thousands of pounds, lying unsold owing to the fall of the market on account of a substitute for varnish having been discovered. Then the road goes through Kaihu. where a wonderful collection of kauri gum, Maori and other curies, deer heads, etc., belonging to Mr Doherty, is on view in the bar of the hotel.

Forty years ago all the hillsides and valleys of the Northern Wairoa were covered with kauri, but the crosscut saw and the mills, working day and night, did their deadly work so swiftly and so thoroughly that by the early ’nineties the timber resouices of the district were becoming perilously small. The gratitude of the present generation, and of generations to come, might well go out to a small group of men whose foresight and love of beauty urged them to ’ ”ve preserved for the people of New Zealand for all time at least a specimen jf the kauri forest. Strong representation from these men to the Government resulted in seven acres at the head of the Kaihu Valley being set aside as a scenic reserve: and further pressure shortly increased this reserve to fortyeight acres. But there is one man above all others to whom the people of New Zealand should give gratitude and thanks, and that is Mr James Trounson, whose name the park bears. Mr Trounson’s love of the bush and his desire that the wonderful trees in his possession should le preserved for humanity, impelled him to make an offer to the Government which can be repaid in any measure only by the care with which the park is cherished and the joy it has brought, and will continue to bring, to everyone who visits p’ J n 1919, when the timber resources of the district were nearly exhausted, Mr trounson made a gift of 12 acres of kauri-covered land, and shortly after"*ard® offered to the Government an area of 907 acres of forest land adjoinin" the park for the sum of £40,000, this amount oemg only half the value of the timber on the land, and the land itself being a gift. A single large tree is valued at several hundred pounds, and contains sufficient timber to build a four or fiveroomed cottage. Thanks to a scenic preservation club which had been formed, and which was warmly supported by the Hobson and Dargaville Councils, and .to the visits of influential men from all parts of New Zealand, the Government, on the recommendation of Sir Francis Bell (then Chief Commissioner of Crown Forests), who '” spe r £ tsd the forest nersonallv, accepted Mr Trounson’s magnificent offer. Thus, in November, 1921, the park (known as the Trounson Kauri Park) an area of about 970 acres— was .officially opened by his Excellency Lord Jellicoe as a scenic reserve for the people of New Zealand for all time. Mr Trounson’s joy in giving was as great as that of the people in receiving. To use his own words :

This bush has been one of the great pleasures of my life, and I would like to pass on that pleasure to the generations to come. If the gift of this bush will give pleasure to the people, and if -t inspires gratitude to the Giver of all good, I shall be well repaid. Reallv, mv part in the matter is small; for, rememkre tre S S we , re growing a thousand yeais before the white man came to this country and will be here hundreds of yearn hence I am only too glad to be able to hand on this bush to the for the pleasure of the

Situated in a slight hollow, and surrounded by bare, undulating hills, the kauri forest comes into view somewhat unexpectedly, slightly back from the road Beauty surrounds one with the first step into the park. Here, right at the entrance, are three medium-sized kauri keeping guard; and immediately one finds oneself walking through a glorious forest r 'Y l cll d ® fined bush track carpeted ith fallen leaves. The sight is magnificent—everywhere one turns there is kauri, kauri. A sweep of the head will b»' ln g into view eight or ten straight beautiful trunks 15ft to 30ft in girth and rising straight and strong and bare from 70ft to 100 ft before sending out their crown of branches— trees of all ages oyer four thousand of them, large and vigorous, the most ancient ranging probably ud to 1000 years of life—the finest kauri in the world among them. .There are also quantities of younger kauri with circumferences of several feet and less, and vonn* things in the v«?v eariv years of their life —promise of the continuity

of the forest as the giants of the present, one by one, reach the end of their lives. “ The annular rings tell more than the age of the tree. Its life’s history is recorded in those minute lines. That small cluster in the centre represents the tree when it was but a sapling ; as the tree develops the rings Degin to vary, hence they widen out, telling of years of plenty and vigorous growth. Then come several years when the growth s slow and the rings close together. Sometimes the lines will close up on one side and widen out on the other, caused probably by prevailing winds. As the tree approaches maturity, the growth is slower and the lines so close that in fifty years the increase will be only an inch or two.’’ According to one authority, the kauri is a slow-growing tree for 20 years, but after that it is one of the fastest-grow-ing trees in the Dominion • he himself had grown kauri trees, and found them not at all difficult to rear.

A few minutes’ walk along the track brings one to the Celebration Tree—an “ ungainly giant ” with rugged, irregular trunk, with a girth of 34 ft 3in—under which the opening ceremony took place. A little further on one sees four trunks, and in another case two trunks apparently coming from one root, and occasionally an irregular formation of one kind -or another; but for the most part the trees rise like a column, with their greyishpurple or brown trunks growing straight skyward, each surmounted by its crown of green. The kauri is not so greedy of nourishment but that it allows other trees and shrubs to grow ; and all through the forest, like «a light network around their giant columns, grow the karaka, kiekie, tawa, punga, and small ferns of varying kinds. For a short distance from th© entrance the undergrowth has been partially cleared to show the kauri boles to better advantage; but further on where the track falls into a gully, the smaller vegetation constitutes a veritable jungle, and here the inhabitants of the bush have their paradise—the tui, the fantail, and other birds. And as a background ot sound to all the others of the bush, is the buzz, buzz, of the cicada.

One just wants to sit and sit and drink in the beauty and peace and inspiration of it all, worshipping in this natural temple, and making it known to others that they may also share in its gifts. So many good' things are around, either not discovered or their existence only faintly realised, that years often pass before people wake up fully to what they are losing. And one feels sure that if the Trounson Kauri Park was brought more frequently and more insistently to the attention of our people, many more would be able to visit it and absorb into their minds and spirits the atrnospheie of that which is their heritage. Even to visit it for a day is far more than worth while; but one wishes that an accommodation house was nearc to enable one to visit it day after day and imbibe the peace and quiet and “ strength of soul ” of the towering forest monarchs, and become imbued with the greatness and glory of the trees. Van Dyke’s words come to the mind :

The glory of trees is mor e than their gifts J.is a, beautiful wonder of life that lifts, .b rom a shrunken seed in an earth-bound clod A column, an arch in the temple of God. ’ A pillar of power, a aome of *delisht, A shrine of beauty, a joy of sight? Their roots are the nurses of rivers in birth Their .leaves are alive with the breath of the earth. They shelter th e dwellings of man, and they bend O er his grave with the look of a loving friend.