This is a 15 to 20 minute easy walk to a huge rimu tree, passing through lush native bush. The track starts 7km up the Umere Road.
Rimu grows throughout NZ and was once very popular as timber for furniture as well as framing and finishing so is undoubtedly NZs best known native species.
Captain Cook, one of early discoverers, found that rimu together with manuka (tea tree), molasses and yeast brewed up a mighty fine beer. Maori used rimu medicinally – the inner bark was pulped to put on burns, the bitter gum used to stop bleeding, and the leaves used on sores.
Legend has it that this tree owes it's continued existance to the fact it was too big to be milled with the means available at the time the rest of the area was cleared.
Please use the hint as GPS readings can be quite erratic with the bush cover. If anyone has better coordinates please don't hesitate to post them, thank you.