Rangihoua Bay

Rangihoua Bay is a bay at the southern end of the Purerua Peninsula, on the north-west shore of the Bay of Islands in Northland, New Zealand. It is 10 km north across the Bay of Islands from Russell and 12 km north from Paihia. By road it is 32 km from Kerikeri.

History

In the early 19th century, when European ships first began visiting the area, the Ngāpuhi chief Ruatara had a pā at Rangihoua. It was the friendship of Ruatara with Samuel Marsden that led the latter to decide that Rangihoua would be the site of the first Christian mission in New Zealand. Prior to the establishment of the mission Ruatara had been the first to grow wheat in New Zealand, at Rangihoua in 1812.

The missionaries, John King, Thomas Kendall, and William Hall, together with free settler Thomas Hansen, arrived in Rangihoua Bay on board the brig Active on 22 December 1814.The first Christian sermon on New Zealand was preached by Marsden at Oihi Bay (a small cove in the north-east of Rangihoua Bay) on Christmas Day, 1814. On 24 February 1815 Marsden purchased land at Rangihoua for the first New Zealand mission.