The News, Culture and Practice of Sailing woodenboats
in Australia, New Zealand & The South Pacific.
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The Kauri Gum Diggers
They trudged home at dusk through the tea-tree scrub with their pikau (a sack-backpack) heavy with gum. On the flats, gum was found two to six feet down; in the swamps, as deep as twelve. Experienced diggers sometimes struck rich veins — but more often, the earth yielded little.