Time in Thames

The universe has been smiling on me -- I came to Thames (in the Coromandel Peninsula) at the exact perfect time (for me). I'm staying in an absolutely wonderful hostel -- the Sunkist backpackers (Dad you would've loved this place, it's super clean). The woman who runs it is a solid motherly figure -- she just walked into the room and said "O Katie, there you are! I was getting worried about you!" -- Must have been because I spent the whole day out and about yesterday. I ended up making friends with some locals and going up into the bush and seeing a Kauri tree.

Kauri trees. (I'll wait for you to google them).

Words would only butcher the experience of being in the presence of a Kauri tree, but I'll try. They're freakin' massive -- it would take at least 10 people to be able to reach all the way around the one I saw yesterday, and that's not the biggest one in NZ. On top of being huge, it puts out this great energy -- like it's surrounded in power, inside and out, and that it just envelopes all that is nearby. The vast (vast) majority of them were logged in the past century or so (before conservatism got cool); and yesterday I learned that most of the buildings in Thames are made from them (Thames is tainted!). Anyways, this tree was stories upon stories high, with a light, speckled trunk. Gum seeps out of the trunk which people used to use for things (I don't know what things, probably gum- related). I spent a fair amount of time laying on the ground and staring up at the branches -- you could totally build a sweet tree house up there, but the spirits living up there probably would not have been pleased at that. It's heart-breaking to think of all that was lost by the felling of these trees -- the power they held, as well as all the things that lived in the forest that depended on them and are no longer (visible and otherwise). I blame men.

I'm off to Auckland in a coupla hours -- only one more night in NZ! How sad. I'm grateful that I spent the end of my times in Thames -- it was as close to perfect a human gets.