Day 5. Dargaville to Pakiri Beach 128km. Spent a couple of hours in the Kauri Museum in Matakohe. A tribute to the European pioneers from 1850 on, it faithfully recreates through photos & artefacts, the life of Kauri loggers (the most valuable timber for home use & export), Kauri gumdiggers (gum was used for varnish & linoleum) and the dairy farmers who cleared the land. Big Dylan would have loved the collection of tools & engines of rural life as they evolved over the century from 1850. A huge wall of chainsaws!! Makes you appreciate how strong is that instinct to seek out new opportunities & wealth. By the 1920s a conservationist movement had formed that managed to protect the last few pockets of native woodland.
And then a tent pitch overlooking 9km of sandy beach, the sound of breakers & birdsong.....