Postcards from New Zealand: Day Twenty-Three

This was our last day in the Northlands, and on the way home we stopped to see the famous giant kauri trees of Waipoua Forest. I like trees, and I like big trees, but the must-see kauris, the most famous of which is likely 2,000+ years old, didn't much move me. I felt much more intimately inclined to a tree of more pedestrian proportions I had found on the beach at the end of Wharau road near Kerikeri a few days ago. This tree's trunk grew right up out of the beach, but only for a few feet before opening like the palm of a human hand into five sturdy branches, with an empty bowl in the center. Here I promptly curled up, leaning my head against one, and stretching my legs up against two others.