Taranaki Treasure or Californian Criminals?

Just south of Ōakura and New Plymouth, in the Kaitake Ranges of Te Papakura o Taranaki (Egmont National Park), there’s a forest that quietly breaks the rules: a grove of Californian redwoods inside a national park where exotics are usually unwelcome. This film uncovers how they arrived, who planted them, and why they’re still standing today.

The story begins in the 1930s, when Depression-era work schemes transformed Lucy’s Gully. With T.C. List (Egmont National Park Board) and local nurseryman Victor Caddy Davies (Duncan & Davies), unemployed workers planted the foothills of the Kaitake Ranges. Pines, eucalyptus and macrocarpa went in first, but deep in a sheltered, land-locked gully they tried something unusual: coast redwoods. The redwoods thrived and became a defining feature of Lucy’s Gully.

So why are they allowed to remain? A formal national park determination judged the grove historically significant, and decided it should not be removed — a rare exception inside the park. Even as unsafe eucalypts at the entrance were felled in 2020, the redwoods stayed.

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