Christ Church, Russell

Holiday backblip- New Zealand- Day 3

It poured with rain all day but we still had a good day and saw more of Russell than we would have done otherwise (if it had been nice we would have spent half the day on the beach). We went to the Russell museum which was quite interesting then to this church which is the oldest church in New Zealand, it was built in 1834. This area was where the first missionaries came to NZ from Europe and also near where the Waitangi treaty was signed which made NZ part of the British Empire and gave the Maori the rights to their land and the same rights as the British.

After a yummy lunch we went to Pompallier House which was a mission house built by a French man and housed a printing press. Over 7 years they printed and gave away over 40,000 copies of prayer books and hymn books to the Maori people. It's been restored as a hands on museum and the guided tour was fascinating and included some printing and binding being done the original way. The boys really enjoyed it too as they got to play with the bits of leather (that would have been the covers of the books) and old tools.