kim biddulph

I’m very lucky to have family in New Zealand and so have managed to visit the beautiful country several times. With me and my husband both working in the heritage business, we tend to sample the museums, archaeological sites and historic houses alongside the natural beauty and Lord of the Rings attractions.

We haven’t seen them all, by any stretch (we’ve never managed to get to the South Island), but we have visited the museums in Auckland, Rotorua and, this time, we managed to see Te Papa in Wellington. Some of the earliest European houses in New Zealand are in the Bay of Islands, which we also explored.

Te Papa in Wellington explores the heritage of the islands, both Maori and European, as well as the natural history of the archipelago. I was very keen to see the museum as it’s well known for its work with the local community. Children’s voices were used to interpret the natural history displays, and there was a great deal of input into the displays by iwi (Maori tribes). We were there during term-time and we saw a kindergarten group come in to find out about native wildlife, and some high school kids were enjoying the house in a simulated earthquake.

Rotorua Museum also has a fantastic display of Maori history and cultural objects, including a display on their contribution to the First and Second World Wars. The museum is housed in the old Bath House and some of the rooms are preserved from its heyday. As Rotorua is a volcanic area, there are many spas where you can safely take advantage of the hot pools and bubbling mud. Up in the hills south of the city are the remains of a several buried villages, Te Wairoa, for instance, that were destroyed in the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886, and there’s an account of this in Rotorua Museum.

Auckland War Memorial Museum sits on the top of an extinct volcano in the Auckland Domain park. It has an amazing collection of not only New Zealand treasures but also of the Pacific islands. Maori culture is represented by wonderful meeting houses and canoes among other things.

Russell Museum in the Bay of Islands is a very cute museum with a scale model of Captain Cook’s ship, as well as social history objects of the earliest European settlement in new Zealand. Despite being very remote now, at one point it was the colonial capital of the islands.

Further up the bay are the Waitangi Treaty Grounds where the treaty between the British Government and the Maori iwi was first signed in 1840. It had already been a meeting place for the Ngapuhi people before Europeans arrived. An early government building exists on site, and a century later a Maori meeting house was also built.

Some of the oldest European buildings in New Zealand are in the Bay of Islands, including the Mission House, built in 1822, and Stone Store at Kerikeri, which was built to store grain before it was realised that wheat would not grow in New Zealand. They were built across the river from Kororipo pa, a fortified Maori site, which was still in use when the European houses were first built.

Te Waimate Mission House is further inland. I was particularly keen to go there as it was visited by Charles Darwin on his round the world voyage in 1835. He actually spent Christmas there, but didn’t take to New Zealand. On this point I disagree with him entirely.