The Redwoods Whakarewarewa Forest, or simply Redwoods Forest, is next to Rotorua city. It contains many species of both native and non-native trees, planted to verify their adaptability in this area and use the timber.
Today, this is an important point both for tourists and local peolple: it is a big free park suitable for many outdoor activities like hiking, mountain bike and so on. We walked on the purple path, an 11 km long ring route.

Short description of the route: the walk starts at the information center, surrounded by many redwoods, many of them are really impressive trees. Silver ferns are also present, symbol of New Zealand.

In a few km the path lead us outside the wood, landscape is not so interesting indeed, just some flower and the Rotorua lake catch our attention.
The walk proceeds withouf further point of interest, there is even an area damaged by fire where the nature is at work to to make the woods grow again. We point out that si quite hot in summer time and we are happy to walk back on the shade for the last part oh the excursion.

All in all: the path was not so impressive to us, maybe it's better to avoid the purple ride and do the other paths, shorter then purple one but inside the forest, definitely the most interesting part.

More info:

http://redwoods.co.nz/

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