Centuries-old and primeval forests can’t help but inspire awe and reverence. With their towering tree trunks and otherworldly sense of eternity, old growth forests are places where Filipinos should go if they want to experience nature in its deepest and most immaculate sense.
New Zealand offers such varied places of marvel. Here are a few expansive sites to give travellers that quintessential forest experience.
1. Waipoua Forest – Hokianga Northland
Of all New Zealand’s kauri forests, none is more famous than the Waipoua Forest. As the largest remaining tract of native forest in Northland, Waipoua is an ancient green world of huge trees and rare birds. Here travellers pay respects to Tane Mahuta, a jaw-dropping giant estimated to be 2000 years old. Known as the ‘Lord of the Forest,’ this is the largest living tree in New Zealand. Local MÄori guides also offer walks through the forest at twilight – a truly magical experience providing both a cultural and environmental understanding of this unique ecosystem.
2. Whakarewarewa Forest (known as The Redwoods) – Rotorua
There are many types of trees found in the Rotorua Whakarewarewa Forest but the most impressive are the Californian Coast Redwoods. To best experience the forest, activities include walking tracks, mountain biking, fitness trails and horse riding. The newest experience is the Redwoods Tree Walk which opened in 2016. At 12 meters above the ground, the Tree Walk offers a great daytime experience to see the forest from on high, but is also something else by night when the lights go on.
3. Whirinaki Forest – Bay of Plenty
Whirinaki Forest, inland from Rotorua, was one of New Zealand’s most famous conservation battlegrounds but today it is protected for everyone to enjoy. It is one of the world’s last prehistoric rainforests – a world-class example of a unique podocarp environment that’s barely changed since dinosaurs roamed under the canopy. Colossal trees stand 60 metres high – rimu, totara, kahikatea and matai which are found nowhere else in the world – and inhabited by high numbers of rare and endangered bird species.
4. The Goblin Forest – Taranaki
The southern slopes of Mount Taranaki are home to many walks, but the Kamahi Track through what is known as the Goblin Forest, is a firm favorite. Like a scene from a fantasy movie, the Goblin Forest is filled with kamahi trees, which perch on the trunks of other trees wrapping their own trunks and branches through and around the existing trees. This distinctive forest of gnarled and twisted forms is dripping with hanging mosses, liverworts and ferns, adding to the mystical, filmic scenes.
5. Curio Bay’s Petrified Forest – Catlins
In the southern South Island, The Catlins coast has a variety of features which make it unique. Rugged, remote and endowed with large tracts of native rainforest fringed by high cliffs and golden beaches, with spectacular waterfalls such as the often-photographed tiered Purakaunui Falls, and the dramatic petrified forest which appears at low tide from the sand in Curio Bay – one of the world’s largest and least disturbed examples of a Jurassic-age fossilised forest.
Each forest mentioned has a guided tour designed to make the forest walk both memorable and educational, giving travellers a chance to experience New Zealand’s unique ecology.