South of Whangamata, a road winds up the rural Wentworth Valley to a hidden DOC campground. Hard to imagine that this area once was a large gold mining settlement emplozing up to 300 people. Today, the camp is just the starting point of several walks to waterfalls and early mining relics.
The track crosses the Wentworth River over two bridges and climbs 286 m until it reaches the double cascading Wentworth Falls – roughly a 2.5 hours return walk.
The disease is caused by a microscopic fungus-like organism, called Phytophthora agathidicida (PA). It lives in the soil and infects kauri roots, damaging the tissues that carry nutrients and water within the tree, effectively starving it to death. Only way to protect kauri is to enter walks with clean equipment, especially shoes (or clean them thoroughly at cleaning stations like this one above) – and stay away from kauri trees, give them some slack.From the start, the walk is defined by the NZ native bush plants, including fern trees, nikau, mahoe, kawakawa, rimu, kauri … and lots of smaller shrubs.Nikau palm trunks. Even though they prefer the subtropical climate, they also like shade, the less light they get, the bigger their leaves get.Punga shots. These are the new leaves of a tree fern, still rolled up in a shape that’s called koru – symbolizing growth, physically and spiritually.Old gold mine entry. After 5 meters a collapse stops any spirit of adventure though.A few hundred meters on this gold mine rests forgotten and will soon be gone.The Wentworth River.Another new punga leaf.Touch and feel opportunity for the little explorer.Reaching the bridges, the falls must be just around the corner…Together, these two falls are a drop of approx. 50 m.The upper fall from above.
