The Bay of Islands area is one
of great beauty. It is also the place
where European missionaries—and their antithesis, whalers and sealers—first
experienced New Zealand and Māori culture.
Captain Cook named the area in 1769, the crew of the Endeavour being the first European to
see the many islands, bays, beaches and inlets that make up the Bay of
Islands. Before Cook's visit, Māori
tribes descended from arrivals on the Mātaatua canoe had settled in the
area. Many Māori settlements became important
after the arrival of Europeans in the early 1800s. Okiato became New Zealand's first capital and
Waitangi is known throughout the country as the place where the Treaty of
Waitangi was first signed. Kerikeri
became the first permanent mission station in the country.
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| The Stone Store at Kerikeri |
We
always love visiting Kerikeri. Our
favourite place to stay is the NZMCA park at Rainbow Falls. This is a peaceful area backing onto the bush
that surrounds the falls themselves. It
is a pretty hour's bush walk to the Stone Store Basin. The basin area has it all—historical
buildings and sites, beautiful scenery—and lots of opportunities to walk around
and explore. Then there are the cafes where you can reward yourself with coffee
and cake, as you watch ducks and geese strutting about by the river, while bees
and butterflies flit to and fro in the heritage gardens. Prior to the Basin being bypassed in 2008 the
area was far less peaceful. The removal
of a road bridge and associated traffic has led to the area becoming a tranquil
haven, where it is easy to picture the early missionary settlers going about
their lives.
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| Kemp House and the Honey House Cafe |
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| The Kerikeri Basin from the pa |
Kerikeri
Mission Station was established in 1819, under the protection of Hongi Hika at the
adjacent Kororipo Pā. The Kerikeri River
empties into the Kerikeri Inlet at the Basin—a large pool surrounded by hills,
with Kemp House and the Stone Store nestled at the waterside. Kerikeri Mission house, known as Kemp House,
is New Zealand's oldest building. Built
in 1822, it became the family home for generations of Kemps, who lived there
from 1832 to 1974. There are daily tours
with titles such as Scandals and
Scoundrels and Hymns and Hers. As members of Heritage New Zealand we got
a free tour (all to ourselves too as we were visiting out of the high
season). Our guide, dressed in clothes
befitting the missionary era, was a fount of information. I would highly recommend it.
Beside
Kemp House is the Stone Store, New Zealand's oldest stone building. Built between 1832 and 1836, using Australian
sandstone and local volcanic rock, the storehouse was intended as a trading
post. Māori were interested in European
trade goods and the missionaries had produce being grown at nearby Te Waimate
Mission. The building was stone to keep
the rats from the wheat, as a protection against fire, and as a fortification
against the missionaries' unreliable Māori hosts.
Kerikeri
was rather a backwater at the time and one reason the store was built there,
rather than at busy Kororāreka (Russell) or Paihia, was to keep the sealers and
whalers (who frequented Russell) well away from the hard-earned stock. Ironically this also meant that it was a long
journey to take produce out to the ships anchored in the Bay of Islands. The store was never profitable and was
converted into a library in the 1840s.
Later it was used a barracks, a gum store and boys' school.
The Kemp family bought the building in 1874 and it was used as a general
store before finally being purchased by Heritage New Zealand (then the Historic
Places Trust) in 1975. After restoration
work in the 1990s, the Stone Store re- opened with a museum upstairs and the
lower floor decked out like the old-fashioned trading post it once was, but selling
modern goods that have a retro or historical vibe. We found it a fascinating place to browse
around.
Across
the road from the Stone Store is the entrance to Kororipo Pā Reserve. (A pā was a fortified village or hill fort,
often with palisades and defensive terraces.)
Beside a small car park is an interpretation panel and four tall, carved
pou (pillars). A short walk took us up a
sloping area, the site of the old Māori village, to a viewing platform beside
the pā. During the years between 1821
and 1827 the Kerikeri Inlet was known as Te Waha o te Riri, 'the Gateway of War',
and Kororipo Pā was heavily defended.
Surrounded by mānuka palisades it rose through three levels with
defensive ditches. At the summit was the
chief's whare, while the meeting house, sleeping houses and store houses were
on the lower levels. By the 1830s the pā
was unoccupied; though some Māori related to Hongi Hika and Rewa (the local
chiefs) were living in the village, which was used for seasonal fishing. James Kemp bought the land in 1838. A housing development was proposed in the
1960s but luckily the area was bought by the crown and developed as a reserve,
administered by the Department of Conservation.
Like
the Māori of old, we had wide views from pā —the Stone Store and Kemp House
were in one direction, while the river curved away on the other side. We followed a track that wandered back to the
basin over a small wooden bridge and past the Pear Tree Cafe. This cafe is named for the tree growing in
front of the building, planted by missionary Samuel Marsden in 1819—the oldest
fruit tree in New Zealand. (There are a
lot of 'oldest' things at the Kerikeri Basin!)
This circular walk took around half an hour, plus viewing time at the pā.
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| Rainbow Falls |
Our
walk back to Tangaroa began beside
the Kerikeri River, where an arching footbridge allows visitors to get from one
bank to the other. Close to the end of
the track we saw the remains of an historic hydro-electric powerhouse. This was built in 1930 and operated until
1967, supplying power to the growing town.
Well-to-do settlers from Britain were used to having servants and,
hearing that they were hard to find in New Zealand in the 30s, the womenfolk
insisted on at least having electric power.
We noticed traces of the race, built by Dalmatian gumdiggers, along the
way.
The
track passed through regenerating bush beside the river. Along the way we passed two swimming holes—the
first was at Wharepuke Falls, while further on were the romantically named Fairy
Pools. These were pretty, but cascade at
Rainbow Falls was magnificent—the river dropping 27 metres into a deep
pool. Viewing platforms above were
surrounded by stands of pūriri, totara, karaka and mānuka— home to tui, fantail
and kiwi. A stile here lead to the NZMCA
park.
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| Information panel at Marsden Cross |
We
took the car one day and drove along the Purerua Peninsula to the Marsden Cross
Historic Reserve. It was here that on
Christmas Day, just over two hundred years ago, Māori joined European
missionary settlers to celebrate the first Christian service in New
Zealand. Rangihoua Bay is at the end of
the Purerua Peninsula and looks out on the waters and islands of the Bay of
Islands. In the early 1800s, the large
and powerful Rangihoua Pā stood beside the bay and it was the chiefs of this pā,
Ruatara and Te Pahi, who invited the Rev. Samuel Marsden to set up a mission in
New Zealand.
Marsden
was a Church of England minister and active in the Church Missionary
Society. At his base in Sydney,
Australia, he met several Māori and from them he learned a little about New
Zealand. Marsden determined to include
New Zealand in his missionary work and this led him to bring John and Hannah
King, Thomas and Jane Kendall, and William and Dinah Hall half way around the
world to set up this outpost of Christendom.
It was here at Rangihoua that the first European school was built, the
first book in te reo Māori was prepared, and the first Pakehā child was
born. Marsden's efforts laid the
foundations for the country's agriculture and transformed the Māori economy. Marsden Cross is where the foundations of New
Zealand were laid.
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| Information panels beside the track |
The
Marsden Cross walking track started beside a car park on Oihi Road, a half hour's
drive from Kerikeri. The first thing we
did was examine Rore Kāhu, a rammed earth structure with a wing roof. This housed a three-dimensional model of the
area, along with other information. Then
we began the walk down to Oihi Beach, which nestled in the corner of Rangihoua
Bay. The track was very well made and
wound gently downhill through open farmland.
There were lovely views out across the Bay of Islands, the waters dotted
with sails. The sky was as blue as the
sky can only be in the Bay of Islands—it is said to be the second bluest sky in
the world.
The
track to the beach was little over a kilometre in length and was lined with
information panels telling the stories of the Rangihoua settlement's main
characters. We learned about Samuel
Marsden, who established the mission, and of the missionary and settler
families, and the Māori who lived with them.
There was information about the chiefs Te Pahi and Ruatara and also
about the 'ticket of leave' men (convicts) who were sent to work at Rangihoua. It must have been an interesting
community.
The
track passed a dozen or so of these boards before reaching an area of overgrown
orchards (New Zealand's first) close to the beach. A memorial here commemorated Thomas and
Elizabeth Hansen, the first non-missionary settlers in New Zealand. Thomas arrived on the brig Active in 1814, his wife joined him two
years later. The memorial, complete
with anchor, was erected in 1991. The
track looped around here and came out above the beach by the Marsden Cross.
This
cross has been in place since 1907 but the large interpretation panels were
recently installed by the Marsden Cross Rangihoua Heritage Trust. By the beach there was a board showing what
the settlement looked like on Christmas Day 1814 and information explained what
was happening. Looking at this image,
and others nearby, really brought to life what the settlement would have looked
like. One scene showed a row of houses
with sharply pitched roofs and external chimneys. Beside the dwellings were pens for poultry
and fenced gardens. A ship sits at
anchor in the bay and waka are pulled up onto the beach. Children play while adults work in the
gardens and at the forge.
The
quiet, empty, flat terraces we wandered across gave no indication that men,
women and children had ever lived and worked here. It was as if the missionary group had never
built homes and tended gardens; never loved, laughed, fought and cried on these
grassy slopes; never caught fish in the bay.
We discovered that by 1832 the settlers had moved from Rangihoua Bay to
Te Puna, a little to the west, where land was more fertile. Rangihoua Pā, which was an important and
populous stronghold at the time, is now as deserted as the mission site.
We
were interested to find out more about the early missionaries so moved to
Russell where we parked in a secluded POP near Okiato, with views down to the
water. Māori and settlers, whalers and
missionaries—all were mingling in the Bay of Islands in the early 1800s. Māori were keen to trade with the Europeans
and to sample their new technologies and foodstuffs, though many just wanted
muskets! There was so much vice that the
settlement was known as 'the hell hole of the Pacific'.
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| Russell wharf |
Russell today is a very pretty little township,
its waterfront lined with old buildings dating from the days when it was New
Zealand's first capital. Russell's
church, built in 1836, is the oldest existing church in the country. The land it is built on was purchased from
Māori by early missionaries and the area was considered sacred by both
cultures.
Russell
is also home to Pompallier Mission, named after Bishop Pompallier who
established the Catholic mission here in 1839.
Over the next decade, the brothers built a residence, dormitory, chapel,
cook-house and the surviving building—now known as the Mission House. Actually this building was where religious
tracts and books were produced. It
housed a tannery, currier's workshop, composition (type-setting), binding and
printing rooms. Unlike the English
mission houses, which were Georgian-style wooden buildings, the French built a
two storey rammed earth structure. Pompallier
House looks like a little piece of France.
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| Pompallier House |
Surrounded
by gardens with heritage fruit trees and flower beds, and facing the beach
where waves gently lapped and boats bobbed at anchor, everything was serene
when we arrived. I half expected to see
a robed priest or two flit between the trees.
We were just in time for a tour.
This turned out to be excellent, our guide spent 45 minutes explaining
how the mission developed and how the Marists produced the books they used to
spread their Catholic beliefs.
In
pits behind the house, hides are processed in urine as they were in days gone
by. Our guide told us that just one
small hide produced a stench she could smell from the gatehouse. Luckily the skins we saw that day were
further along in the process, being stretched and dried. This leather was for book covers. In a downstairs room, known to the guides as
the workout room, the brothers used to treat the leather by putting it on a
frame they walked on, whilst using rollers on their arms to further treat other
hides. There was other equipment in this
gym-like room but we were told that one brother got to 'skive off'. Apparently the skive, a sharp tool that cut
and smoothed leather, was not so physically demanding to use, though it
required a skilled hand.
Upstairs
we saw the old printing presses, late 16th and early 17th century technology—out
of date even when they were brought to New Zealand. We saw how the printers used to 'coin a
phrase', the quoin being a wedge that held the type in place, then they 'cut
(the paper) to the chase' before making a 'first impression'. It seems that many of our everyday phrases
owe lots to the book printing process.
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| Waimate Mission House |
On
another day we headed along the old missionary route (New Zealand's first road)
from Kerikeri to Waimate North, to the mission known as Te Waimate. This was the Church Missionary Society's
model farm, founded in 1830 by Samuel Marsden with the encouragement of the
local Ngāpuhi, who were keen to learn the benefits of agriculture. Charles Darwin was an early visitor. He had been unimpressed with vice-ridden
Russell and the scrubby 'useless' scenery between Paihia and Waimate. Then he got a pleasant surprise—he saw an
English-style settlement with tidy fields, fruit trees and all the signs of
English civilisation: cups of tea and cricket on the lawn.
Nowadays
Waimate North is a sleepy crossroads with almost all the mission buildings
gone. The church of St John the Baptist
is surrounded by its graveyard where early missionaries and settler families
were laid to rest. There are also graves
of British soldiers who died fighting Māori during the Northern Wars. More than one died from 'friendly fire'. Beside the church is the only remaining house
from the mission era, the 'old vicarage' built by George Clarke in 1831 (the
second oldest wooden building in New Zealand).
There are spacious rooms inside, though it is hard to imagine where
George and Martha's 13 children found a place to go to bed. In the mission grounds are the sites of other
homesteads, schools and cottages, though all that is left now are mounds and
hollows.
We
continued on our discovery along the missionary road, also known as 'the old
trade route,' by heading west to the Hokianga Harbour. Just past the sleepy settlement of Horeke,
once home to one of New Zealand's first shipyards, we came to Māngungu Mission
House. This was a Wesleyan venture,
established in 1828, with the present house built just before the signing of
the Treaty of Waitangi. After the treaty
was signed at Waitangi, it was taken around the country and it was at Māngungu
that the largest signing took place.
There were between 2,000 and 3,000 Māori present that day and 700 chiefs
debated and signed the document. Later,
the mission at Māngungu was disbanded and the house moved to Onehunga in
Auckland where it was used as a Methodist manse. In the 1970s the building was returned to Māngungu
and restored by Heritage New Zealand.
Inside the house are relics of missionary days with portraits of the
missionaries and their Māori protector, Patuone.
The
house is on a rise overlooking the Hokianga Harbour and has a historic cemetery
where I discovered that very many early settlers and visitors died by
drowning. There is a tiny church and
also a wonderful outside long-drop toilet that is fully wallpapered! We were the only visitors on this occasion,
though it is interesting to visit on February 12th (as we have done in the past)
as this is the date the Mission commemorates the treaty signing. The Hokianga Harbour has its own stories, as
we discovered later.
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| Paihia Wharf |
Back
in the Bay of Islands we visited Paihia where, in 1823, the Rev. Henry Williams
set up the country's third mission station.
Pious locals dubbed the spot 'heaven' as a comparison to the riotous
'hellhole' at Russell. Like Russell it
is a pretty spot to visit, with interesting shops and galleries and waterfront
eateries. Definitely more heaven, than
hell.
A few
minutes north of Paihia is Waitangi, home to the Treaty Grounds where, on
February 6th 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. This document of accord between the British
Crown and Māori was later taken around the country and signed by over 500 Māori
chiefs. If New Zealand's foundations
were laid at Rangihoua, the building of a nation was begun here.
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| Waitangi Treaty House |
As
well as the 'Treaty House', the Treaty Grounds feature a carved meeting house,
the world's largest ceremonial canoe, and the newly opened Museum of
Waitangi. This state-of-the-art museum
has exhibitions that explain the history and significance of Waitangi. There are exhibits of Māori taonga
(treasures) and the opportunity to witness cultural performances. We walked around the gardens and lawns that
extend around the headland and down to the waterfront. Here we found Te Whare Rūnanga, a carved
meeting house, standing opposite the Treaty House, the pair symbolising two
cultures on which New Zealand was founded.
Te Whare Rūnanga was built as an example of Māori craftsmanship in 1940,
celebrating the 100 years since the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi.
What
is now called the Treaty House was originally known as the Residency. The building was prefabricated in Australia
and sent to New Zealand as the home of James Busby, the British Resident. It was Busby, together with William Hobson,
the first Governor of New Zealand, who wrote the treaty. The house has been restored to its former
glory, the rooms being set out as they would have been in 1840. From Waitangi we looked across at Russell and
felt that we had discovered quite a lot about the life and times of the early
missionaries and settlers, and of the Māori who had welcomed them.
Walks and places of interest mentioned in this post (correct at time of writing)
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/northland/places/kerikeri-area/things-to-do/kororipo-pa-historic-walk/
20 min, one way, easy:
walking track
Access: Stone Store
Basin, Kerikeri
www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/northland/places/kerikeri-area/things-to-do/kerikeri-river-track
3.5 km, 1.5 hr, one way,
easy: walking track
Access: Stone Store
Basin, Kerikeri
Places to visit
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The Stone Store and Kemp
House
http://www.heritage.org.nz/places/places-to-visit/northland-region/kerikeri-mission-station
Stone Store Basin,
Kerikeri
Hours: November-April
10.00 am-5.00 pm, May-October 10.00 am-4.00 pm
Entry price: $10.00 adult,
children and members free
The Strand, Russell
http://www.heritage.org.nz/places/places-to-visit/northland-region/pompallier
Hours: November-April
10.00 am-5.00 pm, May-October 10.00 am-4.00 pm
Entry price: $10.00 adult
- ·
Waitangi Treaty Grounds
Tau Henare Dr, Waitangi
www.waitangi.org.nz
Hours: 26 December-29
February 9.00 am-6.00 pm, 1 March-24 December 9.00 am-5.00 pm
Entry Price: Day Pass
$50, New Zealand resident, $25, children free
Motukiore Rd, Horeke
http://www.heritage.org.nz/places/places-to-visit/northland-region/mangungu-mission
Hours: Saturday, Sunday
and Monday, December-Easter Monday, 10.00 am-4.00 pm
Entry price: adult $10
