The Bay of Islands Part 3 - An Historical Mission House

The other fascinating place that we visited on this journey was the Waimate Mission House and the church, the church hall and a graveyard nearby.

Apparently this is where the second treaty of Waitangi was signed, and is the only surviving Mission House of three that were founded in 1830 in Maori heartland by the Church Missionary Society. Charles Darwin is supposed to have spent Christmas there in 1835.

Now these dates were very interesting to me. At that time, Melbourne was a colony called Port Philip. My maternal grandfather's grandparents arrived in Sydney from Etchingham in Sussex on 31 August 1838, and finally in Hawthorn in Melbourne on 3 January 1839. They were young farmers who were appointed to manage the farm owned by the wealthy landowner John Gardiner. Their first child was the first white child born in the Hawthorn district. Members of the local Aboriginal tribe knocked on the door of their little house and asked to be given the child, who was called William, because they thought a child of white skin might bring magical powers to their tribe. Of course the young couple refused. A few years later they helped establish a Methodist Church in Oakleigh, where they then had their own farm.

I spent some time wandering through the rooms of the Mission House, which has been restored to show as closely as possible what it was like in the Mission House at the time, with its several fairly austere bedrooms upstairs. I was intrigued to read about some of the first missionaries. According to documents posted on the walls, at least in one case the missionary developed a mental illness, in which he suffered from delusions, which fortunately responded to treatment. This place was so far from a white settlement, one can imagine the stress this placed on the people who lived there at that time. They must have felt isolated and at times very afraid. In the early days some Maoris tribes did practise cannibalism.

I wandered amongst many of the graves, some very old, some very fresh. The graveyard us certainly in a picturesque setting, though I assume it is very wet much of the time given the incredible amount of parasitic plants growing on the old trees. They certainly are a heavy burden on their hosts!  These are shown in my last three photos.

 But I must admit that for most of us, the highlight of this visit was the wonderful afternoon tea served to us by a couple of ladies in the church hall. I reckon their scones with homemade plum jam and cream were the best I have tasted on this entire trip, and that includes tea rooms in York and the Cotswolds in England! I made a point of telling them so, too. They were really chuffed. 

I cannot believe that this was the last of all my shore excursions on this 8-month trip. Tomorrow morning I will arrive in Sydney. So I must start packing - again! But before I close this chapter of my travels, as it were, I will wrote a post with an overall reflection on my trip, and another on travel hints you may find helpful. I had to learn some of these strategies on the run!