This morning didn’t look as nice as yesterday but as it turned out, was only a little cooler and was a lovely day. We walked down to Paihia to catch the ferry over to Russell. This is the oldest town in New Zealand used by the whalers as an ideal provisioning port but unfortunately it gained a reputation as a lawless place with the nickname ‘Hellhole of the Pacific’ it was the first capital but suffered economic decline when the capital moved to Auckland. We started in the museum which has a 1/5 scale model of the Endeavour – Captain Cooks ship along with a number of artefacts from the early days. We watched a DVD providing information on the background history and customs of both the Maori and European settlers. We brought the Russell heritage trail booklet to follow round town, although to be honest the information was good but the map was pretty rubbish! Russell is home to the oldest licensed premises in New Zealand which is the Duke of Marlborough it has licence number 1 which was granted in July 1840 to a time expired convict from Australia. Russell is also home to a church that was built in part from a donation from Charles Darwin, interesting as his work so upset the church! Once we finished the walk we had a coffee down by the wharf then started our assent of Flagstaff hill, this is the home of the original flagstaff raised by the British and felled four times by Hone Heke’s warriors in protest of the treaty signed by the British and Maori. The current flagstaff was raised as a peace offering in 1857 by the son of Hone Heke and a number of the original warriors that had cut the old ones down.
We walked back down the hill and got the ferry back to Paihia and the apartment to have some lunch. This afternoon we went to rainbow falls which we were going to walk to but unfortunately the river path is currently closed as it is being repaired. After a bit of detective work by Chris we managed to find a carpark near the top of the falls so drove there and walked up to them. They are quite spectacular with a drop of 35 metres, previously they powered a hydroelectric plant, created as retiring civil servants from Asia wanted to move to the area but servants were notoriously hard to find in New Zealand so their wives said that if they couldn’t have servants they had to have electricity! By the time we got back to the car it was time to head back and relax before packing up as we leave tomorrow.
