Kaingaroa Village Unity Project

Back in 2017 the other half took me to the small forestry town of Kaingaroa Village. A very quiet small place with not alot of action, there was plenty of graffiti, vacant lots, broken down vehicles, barking dogs and unused/boarded up shops and buildings.

On the side of this Four Square building (the Kiwi equivalent of a corner shop/dairy/store) was the graffiti. I've done some digging as to who the artist was and all I could find was that it could've been done by Azah Wirangi as part of the Kaingaroa Unity Project back in 2017 so we must've visited the area just after it was completed.

This town was once a thriving forestry area and although there are still plenty of trees around, the forestry company that was once there is no longer and in it's place are abandoned empty buildings and sheds.

In the 1980s the government sought to sell the forests to private buyers but several Maori Iwi went to court to prevent the sale arguing that they were still the traditional owners of the land. After 20 years settlement was reached and the lands were returned but the forests themselves are still owned by Kaingaroa Timberlands Ltd.

Linking up with Mural Monday for this one.

The mysterious town of Kaingaroa Forest

This place is probably the spookiest place I've ever visited.  What use to be a flourishing thriving forestry town is now populated by a handful of residents and is full of old buildings covered in graffiti

Alot of the houses and buildings here were built for when the town was alot busier. The actual forest covers 2900km in the Bay of Plenty region alone and begins near Lake Taupo and ends at Kawerau.

This is a rather sad looking mural we saw when we drove past the local shops (all 3 of them) and the windows had iron bars across all of them.

I'm guessing this building (above and below) were originally the headquarters of the forestry logging company, very strange to see it empty, broken glass and covered in graffiti.

I don't know how long the buildings have been abandoned but the other half said that when he was younger he remembers delivering packages to here and seeing people working in the offices. Quite sad really that it's been allowed to decline so rapidly.

Linking up with Skywatch Friday :-)