Today, thanks to hard work through the decades, Cook’s vision is a reality. Everyone shared the understanding that each task that was completed was one step further towards the realisation of a collective dream. The physical ‘gut-busting’ work that people endured in Pukeiti’s early days were tempered by a ‘bush’ camaraderie, topped up with gallons of tea. The official opening took place on Thursday 1 November 1951, when the gates were opened to visitors who walked from the shack right through to the summit along the bush track and partly formed road. “One walk through is enough,” he said, and that night he located the owner and bought the property.Ĭook donated the block to the Pukeiti Rhododendron Trust and work soon started on developing the property. He was also attracted to the clean and healthy looking rhododendrons which were still thriving despite being in an old and neglected garden. With help from Russell Matthews, original owner and developer of Tūpare in New Plymouth, he found a bush block on Upper Carrington Road for sale in March 1950.Īs Douglas walked through the 153.5-acre (65ha) block of bush, he was blown away by the filmy ferns and luscious landscape, as well as the views which included the surfbound coast, North Taranaki and Mt Ruapehu. Pukeiti was founded by William Douglas Cook, who had a vision to create a vast natural garden of rhododendrons.

Please be aware that there is machinery operating and tracks are being created and improved. Summit Track: 1km (further 400m to summit).Mobile phone coverage is not reliable in this area, so please be careful. There are three unbridged streams that can be impassable after heavy rain. There are spectacular views of the Tasman Sea, and the Pouakai and Kaitake mountain ranges.īe prepared for possible changes in weather conditions. Pukeiti's rainforest tracks (ranging from 0.7km to 1.9km) take you through the regenerating rainforest with remnant pockets of mature forest and some ancient rimu trees. Now, more than 80 years later, the forest covers the land once more. Afterwards, some areas remained forested while others were used for pasture or pine plantations. Most of the rimu were removed in a decade during logging in the 1920s. For thousands of years, Pukeiti was unspoiled virgin rainforest.

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