EC-Rider Travels

Today the weather was a little kinder and we woke up to blue skies and so much bird song it was almost deafening. After another delicious breakfast (cooked by us!), we headed out to the most lovely museum in Russell presenting the history of the Pompallier Mission and their extraordinary printing work.

Sitting on the shoreline, overlooking the Bay of Islands, this French-printery and tannery was the hub of the Catholic mission in the 1840s producing thousands of prayer books translated from Latin into Māori.

At this time, Russell, formerly Kororareka and the capital, was regarded as the ‘hell-hole of the Pacific’ due to the drunken and raucous behaviour of its inhabitants – predominantly British sailors. It was against this colourful backdrop that a group of French Marist Brothers, including Jean Baptiste Pompallier, chose to set up a Catholic Mission in Russell. The British/Irish missionaries were not welcoming of the Marist Brothers and created propaganda to set the Māori against them. Meanwhile, Pompallier, learnt to speak Māori and won the trust of the Māori chiefs and through the distribution of his books started to educate them. The Māori wanted to learn and the literacy rate in New Zealand soon exceeded that in the UK. Pompallier played a crucial role in mediating the opposing parties during the signing of the Waitangi Treaty.

We had a fascinating tour of how the printing press would have operated at this time and the extraordinarily labour intensive process involved in not only printing the books but then binding them in leather from their tannery. Skins had to be imported, as there were no cows, sheep or pigs as there was nowhere to graze farm animals at the time. Hair was removed with human urine and then endless washing, drying rolling and beating to cure the leather to the level it needed to be. It took five years for a cow hide!

What was equally fascinating is how many of the every-day phrases we all use, came from the printing room:

• Stereotype – A metal plate that was cast from a mold of set type
• Cliché … a case of commonly used phrases
• Uppercase and Lowercase. … Where the letters were stowed in organised cases.
• A Dab Hand. … operator of the ‘dab’ to apply ink on to the block
• Typecast …… re-creating the same product from the same mold
• Against the grain. … cutting wood with the grain
• Making a Good Impression. … good print impression on the paper
• Hot off the press. … hot type cast from the Linotype machine
• Out of sorts …. running out of a sort/ piece of type.
• Wrong end of the stick – stick to ensure letters up the right way
• Mind Your Ps and Qs! – don’t get them the wrong way round

It was fascinating. In the afternoon we joined a boat trip around the bay of Islands. This is an enclave encompassing more than 140 subtropical islands with beautiful deserted beaches and bays. It is all part of a reserve with strict rules and only one on which one can spend the night. It is truly stunning and it was fun to see the various islands including Roberton Island where Captain Cook first arrived on his ship, Endeavour in 1769 and also the infamous hole in the rock, way out in the Pacific. Around the side of the rock is the face of Tetukatiamoana, the guardian of the Bay facing due north towards the legendary Hawaiki, where Maori believe they come from.

We were dropped off on the largest island, Urupukapuka ,and I went for a lovely walk to the top of the island with my new friend Russell who was a conservationist living on a boat and working as a volunteer to protect the islands.

Home for a quick change and Vodka and Tonic and back down to the town for a very good dinner at the Duke of Marlborough of course!