Photo: W. Bulach (CC BY-SA 4.0)
A self-guided audio walking tour in two halves on either side of the inner Bay of Islands. At the Waitangi Treaty Grounds it starts in the Museum of Waitangi and Te Rau Aroha, the museum of Māori military service, then crosses the grounds where the Treaty was first signed on 6 February 1840, and sets out plainly how the Māori and English texts differ. It goes on to James Busby's Treaty House, where the 1835 Declaration of Independence was drafted, the carved meeting house Te Whare Rūnanga facing it, the kauri waka Ngātokimatawhaorua built for the 1940 centenary, and Hobson Beach. Across the bay by ferry from Paihia, Russell, once Kororāreka, follows: the wharf and the Strand, the Duke of Marlborough Hotel, the 1870 customs house, Pompallier Mission with its rammed-earth printery and tannery, Christ Church of 1835 to 1836 with musket-ball holes from 1845, the Russell Museum, and Flagstaff Hill, where Hōne Heke cut down the British flagstaff four times. Cruise ships anchor in the bay and tender passengers to Waitangi Wharf, near the Treaty Grounds entrance.
14 narrations, yours to keep — no subscription, no expiry. Works offline once downloaded, and if it isn’t for you we’ll refund it.
Going somewhere with no signal? Put the guide on your home screen first, then download it from that icon while you are on wi-fi — that way you download once, and it works in airplane mode with no roaming charges. Show me the order →
Every claim in this tour traces back to a named source — excavation records, the heritage authority for the site, and the primary texts themselves. Nothing is copied from other guidebooks, and anything we can't source doesn't make the recording.
Each stop is built from OpenStreetMap · 43 features in this old town (the field-surveyed mapping database behind Apple Maps), Wikidata (peer-reviewed structured records), the heritage authority below, and the primary historical texts where they exist.
Cross-referenced against Modern excavation publications · academic peer-review.
Every sentence is checked against those sources before it is recorded. If a claim can't be traced, it doesn't make the audio.
Every tour is reviewed by a person before it goes on sale. Stop selection, the route and anything ambiguous come back to the editor for a decision, and those questions routinely send a stop back for another accuracy pass. Nothing publishes on a machine’s say-so.
Spot anything inaccurate? Email [email protected] — fixed in the next pass.
Museum of Waitangi Te Kōngahu, Te Rau Aroha, Waitangi Treaty Grounds, Treaty House, Te Whare Rūnanga, Ngātokimatawhaorua, Hobson Beach.
Russell Wharf, Duke of Marlborough Hotel, Old Police Station and Customs House.
Pompallier Mission, Christ Church, Russell Museum, Flagstaff Hill.
The flagstaff marking where the Treaty was first signed on 6 February 1840, and an account of how the Māori and English texts differ.
James Busby's prefabricated house of 1834, where the 1835 Declaration of Independence was drafted and the Treaty texts finished.
The carved meeting house built for the 1940 centenary, facing the Treaty House, with the figure of Kupe at its apex.
The ceremonial waka built of kauri by northern and Waikato iwi for the 1940 centenary and launched every February.
Built in 1835 and 1836, the oldest surviving church in New Zealand, its timber walls still pierced by musket balls from 1845.
Maiki Hill, where Hōne Heke cut down the British flagstaff in protest, and where the present staff of 1858 was raised by Maihi Paraone Kawiti.
Tap "Start Walking Tour" and allow location access. The map shows all 14 narration points.
Follow the suggested route or explore freely. GPS tracks your position. Reach a site and the narration plays automatically.
Each site has its own narration. 14 narration points.
Narrations play when you reach each site. No buttons, no track numbers. Walk naturally — the stories find you.
Premium narration that sounds like a documentary. Warm and knowledgeable, not a textbook reading.
Every narration is drafted, cross-checked against primary sources, then passed through a second editorial pass that strips unsupported claims. Dates, names, and citations verified.
See all narration points on the map. Tap any point to hear it early or replay it later.
Every narrated point in Russell and Waitangi — Kororāreka and the Treaty Grounds, each with its own narration.
Spend an hour or a full day. Skip sites, revisit favourites, take breaks. The tour adapts to you.
14 narration points, including Museum of Waitangi Te Kōngahu, Waitangi Treaty Grounds, Treaty House, Te Whare Rūnanga and Pompallier Mission. That is about 24 minutes of narration in all, and you walk between the stops at your own pace.
Yes. It plays in your phone’s browser as you walk: no guide, no group, no app to install and no fixed start time.
Three ways, all built in:
The map-tap option means you can stand anywhere — even at home before you travel — and play any narration. GPS just makes it hands-free while you’re actually walking the site.
No. Use the “Download for offline” button before you go, and the entire tour — audio, maps, narration text — works without any data connection. Tap-to-play and the map both work fully offline. GPS itself doesn’t need data; only the download does.
Add the icon first, then download from the icon. On iPhone a guide downloaded in Safari cannot be seen by the home screen icon, so downloading first means downloading the whole thing twice.
Putting it on your home screen — iPhone or iPad (Safari):
On Android (Chrome): tap the three-dot menu at the top right, tap Add to Home screen (some phones say Install app), then confirm. On Android either order works.
If you opened this link from inside Instagram, Facebook or Gmail, you are in that app’s built-in browser. It cannot add anything to your home screen, and a guide downloaded there is thrown away when the app closes. Open the link in Safari or Chrome first.
Two backstops. First, the map shows every site — just tap the marker for the place in front of you. Second, you can manually queue any narration even when GPS is off. The platform never assumes GPS works; it’s the convenience layer, not the gate.
The audio runs ~1–2 hours total, but you walk at your own pace. 14 narration points across the site. Most visitors take 2–4 hours; some spread it over multiple visits. Once you buy it, it’s yours — there’s no expiry and no subscription. Come back next year if you like; the link in your receipt always works.
One purchase covers one device session. Most couples share earbuds and use a single phone — the audio is paced for that. If you want everyone listening on their own device, each person needs their own purchase. We do not gate sharing aggressively; we trust visitors to do the right thing.
Full refund if you never trigger a single narration on-site. Partial refund based on how far you got. See the refund policy for specifics.