Te Matua Ngahere
commonly cited as exceeding 2,000 years; published estimates range much wider and are unverifiableKauri
In July 2007 a storm brought down a tree that had been growing on top of this one. A rātā had established itself as an epiphyte in the crown of Te Matua Ngahere, and when it went it took the kauri's central leader and several branches with it. The New Zealand Herald ran the story as Storm takes heart of forest king, and foresters reckoned it had shortened the tree's life by a few hundred years. It is still standing and still draws roughly 50,000 people a year. The name means Father of the Forest, and the shape is the point. It is not tall: 29.9 metres against Tāne Mahuta's 45. But the trunk measures 16.41 metres round, thicker than any other tree in New Zealand, a barrel that stops rather than tapers. Those figures come from a 1971 Forest Service survey and the Department of Conservation still prints them, which makes them the best anyone has, not the newest. Its age is out of reach. DOC says over 2,000 years; other published estimates run from 1,200 to 4,000, and no one is going to core a living kauri to find out. The walk is 730 metres from the Kauri Walks car park, about twenty minutes, ending at a platform ten metres short of the trunk. The Four Sisters walk leaves the same car park and is closed to keep dieback out. Tāne Mahuta is four kilometres up the road, a three-minute drive rather than a forest path.
The button above opens directions in your maps app. No public transport; reached by car on SH12, about 61 km from Dargaville and 21 km from Omapere. Shares the same car park area as the Four Sisters and Yakas Kauri walks, though those two are currently closed (see fam blocked note).
- Species
- Kauri (Agathis australis)
- Age estimate
- commonly cited as exceeding 2,000 years; published estimates range much wider and are unverifiable
- Location
- Te Matua Ngahere Walk, accessed from the Kauri Walks car park, State Highway 12, Waipoua Forest, Northland, New Zealand (Waipoua Forest, about 4 km / 3 minutes' drive south of the Tane Mahuta car park)
- Access
- Free. A 730 m, roughly 20-minute walk on a well-maintained, partly boardwalked track from the Kauri Walks car park off SH12, open 9am-4pm daily. Ends at a viewing platform about 10 m from the trunk; visitors must stay on the track and use the mandatory boot-cleaning wash stations to protect the tree from kauri dieback disease.
- Getting there
- No public transport; reached by car on SH12, about 61 km from Dargaville and 21 km from Omapere. Shares the same car park area as the Four Sisters and Yakas Kauri walks, though those two are currently closed (see fam blocked note).
Trees nearby
Ticking this one off, walks past several more, and your collection growing city by city: that is the Ancient Trees app.
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