These lengths of timber are known colloquially as bog wood, they come from old native bush buried in the mud and have been pulled out to dry for firewood. I am prone to scavenging pieces and in the past I’ve made some prints from the surface of cross sections of pohutukawa - not bog wood in that case, but council trimmings. The pohutukawa was from Te Whanganui a Tara, Wellington. Down here in Murihiku, historically there were vast expanses of podocarp forest and this evening I took my pieces of old buried ngahere and headed to the Southern Woodworkers Guild in Invercargill beside the Ōtepuni/ Ōtarewa Creek. Ivan there very kindly showed me how to use the bandsaw and I cut some nice thick slices of wood to later print off. Some were likely mānuka and possibly mataī? I think I have a fair bit of sanding in my future….I was generously shown around the rooms and saw a huge variety of beautiful cut, sliced, turned, fabricated works. I left to the strains of a local pipe band practicing nearby in the warm evening, very nostalgic.
