The Redwoods Treewalk in Rotorua, New Zealand is an eye-opening experience. – Pictures by CK Lim
ROTORUA (New Zealand), April 21 — We are not walking on clouds. There are treetops over our heads. There are fans of giant ferns below us. We are taking a stroll in mid-air, between behemoths of trees.
We are walking in the redwood forest, high above the forest floor. We are suspended in space, and we are tempted to imagine, in time as well.
The Redwoods Treewalk in Rotorua, New Zealand is an eye-opening experience. From the forest floor to the tree tops, it’s 75 metres of natural wonder.
They are old souls, the very oldest. These towering redwoods have been alive for over a century; they were originally planted in the early 1900s, here in the Whakarewarewa Forest, one of the oldest forests in New Zealand.
These are Californian Redwoods. Exotic but thriving well here in their adopted home. It’s a story often told; you can be an immigrant and excel in strange lands, and sooner or later, those lands cease to be strange but are more home than where you came from.
From the forest floor to the tree tops, it’s 75 metres of natural wonder.
If only every land were as welcoming.
Yet if even Kal-El from Krypton found a new home on the third planet from our sun, so have we. Earth gives us so much and the human race is more than happy to keep taking.
That’s the way it has always been. My mind is stuck on David Attenborough’s new documentary, Dinosaurs: The Final Day, however. Nothing lasts forever. Not for the dinosaurs, not for us.
We slowly take in the view as we walk from tree to tree via the eco-suspended bridges. It takes at least 40 minutes, according to the staff here, for us to wander the length of the 700-metre-long Redwoods Treewalk, spanning 28 suspension bridges and 27 platforms.
Slowly take in the view as you walk from tree to tree via the eco-suspended bridges.
You could call this a bird’s eye view of the evergreen forest, except we don’t hear any birdsong. Perhaps we are too preoccupied with the stunning flora to pay attention to any fauna. It’s a reminder the plant world will survive longer than their animal brethren.
We come across a display showcasing conifer cones from various trees. There are cones from the Ayachuite pine and the Douglas fir. The lodgepole pine, the larch and the coastal redwood, of course.
These are seeds from plants that existed 360 million years ago, long, long before we humans ever appeared on the scene. How humbling.
Some are verdant spheres, others woody fox’s tails. Their formidable scales and colourful bracts rotate and reverberate, promising life will persist even when calamity strikes.
This hits closer to home than I care to admit; I am still thinking of Attenborough and his warning that we are driving animal and plant life to extinction. The dinosaurs in prehistoric times had their asteroid bigger than Mount Everest; modern humans have only our insatiable greed.
A display showcases conifer cones from various trees including the Ayachuite pine and Douglas fir.
It’s a sobering thought as we complete our circuit. The sun is no longer as high in the sky as when we started walking. Time to depart and refuel. Food, and then reflections on what we just experienced.
Barely a few hours later, after dinner, we return to the Redwoods Treewalk. Driving towards the forest, only our headlights shine our path. It’s nearly pitch dark, that is, till we reach our destination.
During dinner, I had sent some pictures of our daytime tree walk to our friends. One observed: “How very Jurassic Park.”
Tall mamaku or black tree ferns stand guard over the forest floor, thick with punga and kiokio ferns; the dense weight of the evergreen forest; the foreboding sense of it all: it’s not hard to see why our friend expected a velociraptor to leap out from the brush.
Now it’s all fairy lights.
After sunset, the redwood forest transitions to an ethereal Nightlights Treewalk.
After dark, the redwood forest is more Avatar than Jurassic Park. More spectacle than wonder.
Dust motes of lights swim this way and that across a sea of ferns. As we retrace our path across the suspension bridges, we are greeted by nests of glowing lanterns, like cages, like skeletons, like the feathers of extinct birds.
These surreal and ghostly lanterns are the creations of environmentalist and designer David Trubridge. His sustainable wooden sculptural lights only use the bare minimum of materials; the surfaces are left unfinished. As they turn in the gentle breeze, the lights reflect the ebb and flow of nature, of life.
Aye, it is a fairytale forest at night, every branch and leaf aglow with magic. This happens every evening once the sun has set, that transition to an ethereal Nightlights Treewalk (the naming convention is clear, if not inspired).
The tranquillity is punctured by music. Our theme song for the evening is Come On, Eileen played “live” by an invisible band at a concert not far away, deeper in the forest.
A fairytale forest at night, every branch and leaf aglow with magic.
Incongruous? Not so. The original by Dexy’s Midnight Runners is one of my favourite songs. It’s silly and frothy. This cover is full of the glory of the 80s, as Tori Amos would extol. It lifts us up from the heaviness of the redwoods.
The song nails us to this moment, forcing us to be present, to see the trees light the night, the spectacular journey of our lives and the resplendent joy in our hearts.
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