On Wednesday night, we went to the Redwoods Tree Walk in Rotorua, NZ. We arrived at 8:30 pm, so we did the nighttime experience. Aside from the hour-long wait, it was terrific. Besides being very beautiful with lights, 20 meters above the ground, and having random projections of local birds onto trees, the walk was also very educational.
About The Redwoods
The Redwoods Whakarewarewa Forest in Rotorua, NZ, was planted in 1901. After an extensive effort to find the best tree to replace the diminishing amount of native and slowly maturing trees, the NZ government landed on the California Redwood. California Redwoods need a very wet environment with a lot of rainfall and constant moisture, which is why western California is an almost perfect environment for them, and semi-central New Zealand is literally the perfect habitat for them. The tallest redwood planted in 1901 is now 246 ft tall and counting. In comparison, the 600-800-year-old tallest tree in the world, Hyperion, which is a Californian Redwood, is 380.8 ft tall as of 2019, according to Guinness World Records. The redwoods in New Zealand are growing much faster because NZ gets consistent amounts of rain year-round, while the redwoods in California can go up to 50 days without rain.
Some more fun facts I learned on the tree walk:
- New Zealanders love ferns. This is just one of those strange things about people that there is not a whole lot of reason behind, like how the stereotypical Italian accent, according to Americans, is an added -a at the end of every word while also stressing the last syllable of the original word without the added -a.
- You can use DJ laser lights to imitate fireflies. There was one portion of the walk in which they used these laser lights, similar to the kind I have for personal amusement and (in theory) DJing. Instead of using these lasers for upping a party athletic, these people instead used them to imitate Fireflies. This is just something random that I thought was fun.
Rating: ★★★★★ – I would go back and recommend it.
