Gumdiggers park north of Kaitaia. Not the prescribed door height for today, but I guess the gum diggers wanted to keep the opening as small as possible to keep the heat in.
The gum, 45,000 years old, still has a strong smell.
The early settlers, apart from the British, were mainly Dalmatiens from the former Yugoslavia. To get to the gum, they had to dig through a layer of sandstone before they got the gum. To save themselves the hassle of digging more often than needed through the hard stuff, once they dug to a trunk, they dug along it to get to the gum.
The word gumboots actually came from that era. The British Wellingtons quickly got renamed gumboots, which is still the name used today.
Gumdiggers park north of Kaitaia. Not the prescribed door height for today, but I guess the gum diggers wanted to keep the opening as small as possible to keep the heat in.
The gum, 45,000 years old, still has a strong smell.
The early settlers, apart from the British, were mainly Dalmatiens from the former Yugoslavia. To get to the gum, they had to dig through a layer of sandstone before they got the gum. To save themselves the hassle of digging more often than needed through the hard stuff, once they dug to a trunk, they dug along it to get to the gum.
The word gumboots actually came from that era. The British Wellingtons quickly got renamed gumboots, which is still the name used today.
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