Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 1 (May 1, 1931)

Enchanting Kororareka — Historic Settlement in New Zealand's Far North

page 47

Enchanting Kororareka
Historic Settlement in New Zealand's Far North
.

On a May morning, at 8.40, we were leaving the city of Auckland, with its turmoil of noisy trams and bustling crowds, for the quiet content of country scenes. A day's journey, with the quaint little station, Opua, tucked snugly away in one of the many coves of the Bay of Islands, at the end. A few minutes and we were chugging through the water across the bay to that little settlement, slightly altered from the settlement of 1860, the front li?ne of shops and dwellings closely hugging the shore. A veritable haven of rest, until recently undisturbed by the intrusion of the motor. Kororareka in the fading light, with the fishing launches dimly outlined, a stray pearling vessel at anchor, the perfect curve of the beach, and the dim buildings thickly interspersed with the dark tree foliage, is ravishing; but Kororareka, reclining in the full blaze of the morning sun, is a land of enchantment, teeming with tales of ancient lore.

“The Little White Church.”

The first room we stepped into had been Bishop Selwyn's reception room at Kohimarama, Auckland, and had been brought up on a scow to its present resting place by one of the Bishop's admirers. Overlooking the building is Flagstaff Hill, of Hone Heke renown, while a few steps to the right, a short distance from the shore, is the little white church, that has witnessed the drama and tragedy of so many pioneer lives—the heralds of civilisation. The church was erected in 1835, the first to be built in New Zealand by the Church Missionary Society. Among the list of subscribers is the notable name of Charles Darwin. H.M.S. Beagle was a visitor in the bay at the time, and the officers and captain, with Charles Darwin, subscribed the handsome sum of £15 towards the building fund. In 1837 Samuel Marsden visited the church, in December, 1838, Bishop Broughton, the first Anglican Bishop of Australia, preached a consecration service, and on the 29th January, 1840, in the same building, Captain Hobson read the Crown proclamation and his Commission as Lieutenant-Governor. A church loved by pakeha and Maori alike, so loved by the latter that during the war of 1845, the Maoris placed a guard over the church to prevent it from sustaining injury.

The white tombstones, rising from the green carpet of Mother Earth, untrammelled by fence, or border, as is befitting these pioneers of the free wilds, lift the veil and let us peer into the dramatic past. The tallest monument, and close to the church, on our right, as we walk up the path, is the stone erected by the Governor of the colony to Tamati Waka Nene, Chief of the Ngapuhi, for thirty-one years a loyal subject of the Great White Queen. He died in 1871. His voice raised at an opportune moment changed the destiny, not of kings, but of thousands of lives. We see him, while the Treaty is being read and interpreted, with bent head, deep in thought. Unlettered, but possessed of the heritage of a more cultured era, he is able to look into the future and compare it with the past. Raising his arm to quell the rising intonations from the gesticulating chiefs, he speaks with the ease and inherent poetry of his race, and the fate of a country is sealed.

Historic Waitangi.

We viewed the spot where this unique rite—the forming of a treaty between civilised and uncivilised man—took place. Across the harbour from Russell, on the right-hand side of the Waitangi estuary as you enter, is a beautiful shelving beach, page 48 and a grassy slope backed with pohutukawa and puriri. One could picture the assembly, the white marquee for Hobson and his colleagues, and the savage gathering without. On the left bank stands the ancient Maori meeting house, which has been moved across the estuary, that it might stand on Government reserve; Waitangi, the site of the treaty, being now private property.

One can navigate the entrance to the estuary, or lagoon, only at high tide; the quaint beauty of the mangroves is then apparent. Their gnarled trunks rising
A Pretty Scene in the Bay of is Lands. A pearling vessel near Russell, North Island, New Zealand.

A Pretty Scene in the Bay of is Lands.
A pearling vessel near Russell, North Island, New Zealand.

from the water are fascinating and the pohutukawa, gracefully bending from the cliff faces, adds majesty to the scene. We wound up the calm estuary with the mangroves on our right, the steeper contour with forest growth and pohutukawa on the left. About a mile up, the estuary widened, assumed the shape of an upturned bowl, over whose rim flowed the waters of the Waitangi. A charming picture, the perfect curve fringed with overhanging greenery, and the white waters tumbling into the mirrored surface below.

Picturesque Paihia.

Leaving Waitangi we coasted the shore on our left and entered the pretty little bay, Paihia, with its beach of shining shells. A more beautiful bay, with a more beautiful view, would be difficult to imagine. In close proximity are picturesque islets so characteristic of the harbour; the coast circles round until far out just opposite, is the glimpse of open sea which marks the entrance. Modern homes, instead of the old Maori whares, now line the strip of level land between shore and bush-clad hills.

The old mission church has been replaced by a handsome stone edifice, erected by the present generation of the Williams family to the memory of their great forebear, Henry Williams. The monument in the foreground bears the inscription— “In Loving Memory of Henry Williams, 44 years preacher of the Gospel of Peace, a father of the tribes. This monument is raised by the Maori Church. He came to us in 1825, he was taken from us in 1867.” A few chains further on just above high water mark is a smaller stone marking the spot where the Mission ship “Herald” was built, and launched by Reverend Henry Williams on January 24th, 1826. And farther back, on the same grounds are the ruins of the early mission house where the first printing press was set up. Picture the interest of the savage tribes when, on the arrival of Colenso, the machine became animated with new life and spoken words page 49 were set down by mechanical aid, to be interpreted afresh by those learned in the art of speaking from a printed page. Ivy now creeps over the stones, while the original fig-trees still bear fruit.

An Inspiring Panorama.

We were advised not to leave Russell without climbing the Trig station, Tikitikiora, where a grand panorama of the bay can be obtained. A winding road led us round the shore for about three and a half miles. Leaving the road at a point where red and white cottons tied to the scrub laid the trail, we commenced the ascent, ultimately emerging from the manuka on to a sun-bathed plateau thickly carpeted with the soft native grasses.

To stand in the midst of a beautiful picture with the fresh grass at one's feet, and the sweet mountain air around one, is a joy indeed. Here was a sky of blue softened with distant fleecy clouds, a sea of darker tone to match, dainty little treeclad islets merging into islands—undulating, green-sloped and cove-curved; bays and inlets and deeper inlets; the blue horizon to the northward, and the rolling hills to the south. Before we left, the
… the purl of a little valley fall About three spans wide and two spans tall.”—Thomas Hardy. The Waitangi Falls as they flow over the curved rim into the estuary below.

… the purl of a little valley fall About three spans wide and two spans tall.”—Thomas Hardy.
The Waitangi Falls as they flow over the curved rim into the estuary below.

son tints of the evening sun were shading the western clouds, and night, that follows apace in these northern lands, overtook us on the homeward track. But the wekas, calling across the valleys for the evening rendezvous, kept the taniwhas at bay.

The following morning we left Russell by mail launch for Kerikeri. The passengers included a small girl and a kitten— a knowing little grey tabby that liked not the look of the briny, and a Home lady who was going to her new place of residence, “away out back o’ beyond,” in one of the hidden recesses of the Bay of Islands. We wondered how she would appreiate the contrast from noisy Sheffield —her home town. She spoke of maids and many visitors, here she would have neither—water being the only means of access to her new home

On the slopes towards the entrance was pointed out to us the spot where Marsden preached his first sermon. A stately Norfolk pine stands as a living monument to his memory. Here, too, the first white woman was born. She lived to ninety-one, and lies in the old church cemetery in Russell.