Russell travel guide

About 2 km across the bay from Paihia, still on the mainland, is the contrasting settlement of Russell which enjoys a village feel and a rich history that eludes its frenetic, tourism-based neighbour. With the advent of the first European settlement, Kororareka quickly grew to be the base for whalers, sealers and escaped convicts and earned the sordid and notorious reputation as ‘the hellhole of the Pacific’. The earliest missionaries tried their best to quell the unholy mob with mixed results. When the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, although it was the largest European settlement in New Zealand, William Hobson, the then governor, decided it was not a good marketing ploy to give it capital status and instead bought land in what is now Auckland. To make matters worse, the treaty was seen by local Maori as a fraud and not as beneficial as was promised, with financial benefits in particular failing to materialize. Their scorn (led by the infamous chief Hone Heke) was focused on the Flagstaff near Russell, which proudly flew the Union Jack. Heke and his men duly cut it down, not once but four times, the last felling causing a major battle in which Kororareka was sacked and the first Maori Wars began. Once relative peace returned the authorities decided to make a new beginning and lose the notorious label, calling it Russell.

Today Russell, along with Kerikeri (also in the Bay of Islands), is flaunted as the most historic village in New Zealand and, although it bustles with transitory tourists in the summer and is inundated at New Year, it manages admirably to maintain a sedate and close community feel, which if you stay, can warm the heart.