Omapere to Raglan – the Kauri Museum and the Gum Fields

We left Omapere and drove down the West coast. We didn’t stop to revist the Kauri forest because our night views had been really special and we didn’t want to spoil them.

We had breakfast at a small town called Pirongia. Next door was a butchery that illustrated one of the things I enjoy about travelling in Australia and New Zealand. Folks and signs say things you understand, but in a slightly different way than they would at home.
We did stop at the Kauri museum about an hour South of Omapere. It is quite large, and has exhibits of old furniture made of Kauri wood, huge slabs of Kauri wood, an extensive collection of Kauri gum, lots of Kauri logging equipment, and dioramas of life during the time Kauri was logged and the gum fields were in operation.

The sap of the Kauri tree is clear and golden brown. Once it is out of the tree it hardens into a lightweight, solid material that resembles amber. The Mauri used Kauri gum to make torches and lights, to make a form of chewing gum, and they used the ash as the dye in their distinctive tattoos. Europeans used it for varnish, for linoleum, and for carving.

The gum was very durable, and it could be recovered by digging into the remains of ancient Kauri forests that had long disappeared.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was a good market in Europe for Kauri gum, and many New Zealanders worked in the gum fields, digging up buried Kauri gum.

The exhibits in the Kauri museum made it clear that this was a very, very difficult way to make a living. The diggers (almost all Pakeha (non-Mauri) from the pictures and exhibits) would poke long iron rods into the wet ground and identify potential lumps of gum by the feel against the rod. They would then dig down in the rocky, wet soil as much as thirty feet in some places, and pull out the gum. The gum was in lumps ranging from a few inches in diameter to hunks about 3 or 4 feet long and a foot to two feet wide. The diggers would then wash the dirt off the gum, take it back to their shacks, spend the evening using knives to remove gravel and dirt from the gum, put their clothes to dry over the fire, collapse, wake up, and do it all over again. About once a week a buyer would ride by and buy the bagged, graded gum. There were several pictures of old men who spent their lives working in the gum fields, and who lived and died in small corrugated iron shacks after they were too old to dig. There also was a picture of a 93 year old man digging gum. He worked all his life in the gum fields, and was still working at 93.

After the museum we drove to Raglan, a pretty little town on a bay in the Tasman Sea. We found a backpackers recommended by the Lonely Planet and got a room. The rooms all surrounded a central courtyard with grass. The other people at the backpackers were all at least 25 years (and maybe more) younger than us, and mostly surfers. We do, however, bump into the young German lady who is studying to be a travel agent. We feel like old friends.
The rooms at this backpackers are quite small. There was not much room on either side of the double bed, and there was about four feet between the foot of the bed and the French doors that ran the width of the room and opened into the courtyard. With our mountain of luggage we barely fit. But the room was clean and neat, and had a window over the head of the bed that looked out onto the bay and allowed a sea breeze in.

This backpackers has its bathrooms were in one corner of the courtyard, and has separate bathrooms for separate sexes – a more complex arrangement than at Cap’n Bob’s. It also has surfboards, kayaks and a small sailing pram available for guests. It sits right on the edge of the picturesque bay, and has limestone formations across the bay that apparently make an interesting kayaking destination.

It was grey and cold when we arrived, so we were not tempted to do anything wet that evening. We had a good dinner at the only place that was open, and planned to stay the next night to check Raglan out.