Daily Photo – Summer Evening in Russell
I like Russell. I really do.
It reminds me of Arrowtown in Central Otago, though not in any obvious way. What they share is a feeling. A sense that time has slowed down, or at least taken a seat on a bench and decided to watch for a while.
In Arrowtown I often catch myself expecting a bedraggled miner to appear from the hills, boots worn thin and beard thick with dust, clutching a small fortune in gold. In Russell, the same trick of the imagination happens along The Strand. Walking its length beside Kororāreka Bay, it’s easy to picture sailors from half the known world sprawled on the pebbly beach, sleeping off a night they would only half remember.
I had been in Russell for four days by then and had fallen into the town’s sleepy rhythm with surprising ease. The fifth morning was like all the others, bright and clear. The sky was a crisp, pale blue and not a breath of wind to speak of. It was going to be what is commonly known as “a scorcher”. Thinking ahead to the rest of the day, I had nothing in mind but to simply wander the local streets and bays and Russell rewards wandering. Streets slope gently toward the water, houses sit back behind hedges and trees, and every so often the bay reveals itself between buildings like a reminder of why you came in the first place. As the morning evolved, I found myself walking with no real destination, pausing whenever something caught my attention, which was often.
New Zealand is young, and Russell wears that youth lightly. I was thinking about this while sitting in the shade, comparing it to places overseas where history feels dense and heavy. In Britain, you can drink in pubs that were already old when Cook first set sail. Here, our oldest pub is The Duke of Marlborough, opened in 1827, and it sits calmly on the waterfront as though it has always been there and always will be.
Earlier in the week I’d wandered past it more than once before finally stopping in. The building feels settled, comfortable with its own story. It is easy to forget that this town once carried a reputation so unruly it made visiting sailors blush. And, it’s a reputation that’s impossible. Kororāreka, as Russell was once known, was infamous. When ships arrived in the early 1800s, they brought trade goods and opportunity, but also grog, gambling, and trouble. Sailors with time on their hands and money in their pockets rarely end well, and this place was no exception.
My plan was to head to the far end of the bay to see an old pā site, before heading back through the town to the historic Pompallier House. As the sun rose in the sky, I followed the road north toward Tapeka Point, a walk that climbs and narrows in places, forcing you to slow down and pay attention to where you put your feet. The views, when they open up, are spectacular. The Bay of Islands stretches out in front of you, calm and deceptively peaceful. It is hard to reconcile the serenity of the scene with the chaos that once played out along its shores.
Standing there, I tried to imagine what it must have looked like when the bay was full of ships, their crews restless after months at sea. It was little wonder that Kororāreka earned the title “hell hole of the Pacific,” a phrase Charles Darwin himself used after visiting in the 1830s.
As the town’s reputation grew, so did efforts to tame it. Missionaries arrived, part spiritual mission, part damage control. I walked back toward town and made my way to Pompallier House, built in 1842. It sits quietly now, tucked slightly away, but its influence once reached across the country.
Inside, texts were translated from Latin into te reo Māori, printed, bound, and sent far and wide. Around 40,000 books were produced here, a remarkable number given the circumstances. Standing outside, it struck me how often the most influential places look entirely unremarkable from the street.
From there, it was a short walk to the church on the corner of Church, Robertson, and Baker Streets. It is the oldest surviving church in New Zealand, and it feels it. The grounds are peaceful, the kind of place where your voice naturally lowers. As I walked around, I noticed the bullet holes still visible in the walls, quiet scars from the Battle of Kororāreka in 1845. Graves of Māori leaders, sailors, and settlers sit together, names and dates offering only hints of lives lived in turbulent times. It is a place that rewards unhurried attention.
By the time I wandered back toward the waterfront, the day had warmed considerably. People sat outside cafés, boats moved lazily across the bay, and Russell felt like it had fully settled into its modern role as a place to slow down rather than stir things up.
Later that day, I found myself back at The Duke of Marlborough as the afternoon slipped along. There’s something deeply satisfying about sitting in the sun, doing very little, and feeling as though you have achieved something meaningful to have earned a drink by mid-afternoon.
