Chasing the Kiwi experience

Shaun Anthony Linford Wallace is an English barrister and lecturer. He is also one of the six “chasers” in the TV quiz show The Chase and he’s coming to Kerikeri.

He
will be featuring in a quiz night at the Turner Centre on July 12. Teams of locals will compete against each other and the winning group will take on the popular “Dark Destroyer”.

Most of the tickets, at $1000 for a table of 10, have been sold. Mid North Hospice is the beneficiary and, after expenses, it expects to raise about $30,000.

It’s Wallace’s third visit to New Zealand and he is very busy outside his quizzing commitments. He first came here in 2019 to host the Sky New Zealand Pub Quiz Championships. He came back in 2023 at his own expense to compete in five charity events. Each event was run at cost, with about $80,000 going to the supported charities.

Last year his trip started with him being mobbed by crowds in the arrivals hall at Auckland Airport in late May. He bungy-jumped off the Sky Tower, climbed the Auckland Harbour Bridge, watched the Blues at Eden Park, threw an axe in Wellington, visited a craft brewery in Upper Hutt, ate oysters in Bluff and met the inventor of Maggi Kiwi Onion Dip.

Former All Blacks lock Ian Jones, the Kamo Kid, gave him a guided tour of the All Blacks Experience, where he was presented with a No 63 Māori All Blacks jersey with “Dark Destroyer” printed on the back.

His latest visit is in conjunction with Believe It Or Not (BION), a Sky TV-owned company that provides pub quizzes. Its founder, Brendan Lochead, said it was no coincidence that Wallace had arrived in time for two rugby tests between the All Blacks and England. Moreover, he would be supporting the boys in black against his home country.

He is in the Bay of Islands for just one day and his schedule has yet to be determined by Hospice Mid Northland. He might visit Waitangi and hop on a ferry to Russell for a bite at The Duke.

Or he might do something different entirely. If you spot him, say hello – he’s reportedly a very friendly celebrity.

The winding road to a PhD

A few years ago, Russell resident Helen Ough Dealy was working as a community ranger with the Department of Conservation (DoC). Part of the job involved managing conservation groups.

Twenty years ago, she became a founding member of the Russell Landcare Trust, a group of locals who worked together, very successfully, to restore the native biodiversity of the Russell Peninsula. They changed their name to Russell Kiwi Protection in 2016.

Helen’s job with the trust was to take care of communities and to get them to understand kauri dieback disease and get them to wash their shoes before entering a forest.

She already had a master’s degree in educational psychology from Auckland University. She was “tapped on the shoulder” one day to try for a PhD in conservation volunteering. She opted to do that at Auckland University of Technology.

“AUT had the academic course as well as the practical, so I chose to do that,” she said.

It took six years of hard slog to complete, working part-time because she had her other job. She would commute every six weeks or so from Russell to Auckland and did quite a bit of the study online.

“I did it all through the Covid shutdowns but, to be honest, most things were online from that time anyway.”

She has now completed her PhD – as an adult student, she says with amusement. For her graduation, she had a korowai (cloak) made specially, which she subsequently gifted to the Haratu Marae in Russell-Kororāreka and which has since been worn by several people for different occasions.

It’s called Rangimarie Tūmanako, which means peace and hope, peace for the peninsula and hope for the forests that surround it.

Pattie records history

Russell resident Pattie Colmore-Williams is a prolific historical writer. She contributes a historical Bay of Islands perspective every month to the local newsletter, Russell Lights.

She was also charged with the oral archiving of kuia and kaumātua for the Russell Museum, which meant interviewing them and recording their stories. As part of that directive, she interviewed Lucy Mina De Thierry Kiwikiwi, who held up a portrait of Te Paea (Sophia) Hinerangi, a renowned guide at the Pink and White Terraces until the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886, when she moved to Whakawerawera and guided from there.

“Lucy told me that Sophia was living in Russell when this town was called Kororāreka and when Hone Heke chopped down the flagpole and she watched all the Europeans escaping to the ships in the harbour,” Pattie said.

Inspired, she began to research the Hinerangi and Gray family – Alexander Gray was Sophia’s father. Pattie received a call from Les Wasley, a descendant of Sophia, who asked if she would write a biography on the guide as the centenary of her death approached in 2011.

A decade later, Pattie, Les and Sophia’s great-great-granddaughter Nadine Pehi worked together on producing a final copy of the book, which has just been launched.

“Between ourselves, we shared stories, biographical details and photographs of the family that have been drawn from many published and unpublished sources, some handed down through several generations of descendants,” Pattie says.

It is her first book and is published by Rebel Magic Books. The first 200 copies have already been sold. Other research details and photographs came from institutions such as Te Papa, the National Library and the Alexander Turnbull Library.

The book will be available at Pompallier House, Russell Bookshop, Russell Museum and the Stone Store in Kerikeri. It will also be available in Whakawerawera, Rotorua and Taranaki. RRP $50-$55.

Angling for a winner

This year’s Bay of Islands Swordfish Club Yellowtail Fishing Tournament attracted anglers from around New Zealand and some from Australia. There was even an entry from landlocked Hamilton and it’s not hard to see why.

The tournament has been going for 54 years and has gathered a reputation as being one of the best yellowtail-catching contests in the southern hemisphere.

Remarkably, it slips under the promotional radar except to those in the know. There is very little local profile-raising, possibly because there doesn’t need to be. There are enough entrants across all classes to almost drown the club’s facilities.

This year there were 94 anglers in 27 teams, including 12 junior teams and eight ladies’ teams. In addition to the standard fishing prizes to be won, there was a trophy for the Hardest Trying Junior, Most Promising Junior, the Most Meritorious Catch and the self-explanatory Mr Bottomly Award.

When the fishing started on the second day, there were already a couple of stories worth telling. Clint Hall on board KC discovered the best way to catch bait was to swim in the sea, gumboots and all, and the Fat Camel crew served up a shark meal after three hours of working on a possible haul.

By the end of the fourth and final day, the tournament tally was 89 yellowtail kingfish weighed, two snapper weighed, one tope, five yellowtail kingfish tagged and released and 24 yellowtail kingfish measured and released. That brought the total for the four-day tournament to 121 fish.

The first three winning teams were all from Australia with a crew from the Swordfish and Tunny Club from Montague Island, New South Wales, taking the top prize.

The Bay of Islands Swordfish Club thanked the major sponsors of the event, Duncan and Carolyn at TotalSpan Bay of Islands and Northland Inc.