New Zealand Guide
Poverty Bay, Hawke's Bay and the Wairarapa
From the eastern tip of the North Island, a mountainous backbone runs 650km southwest to the outskirts of Wellington, defining and isolating the east coast. The mountain ranges protect much of the region from the prevailing westerlies and cast a long rain shadow, the bane of the area's sheep farmers, who watch their land become a parched dusty brown each summer. Increasingly, these pastures are being given over to viticulture, and the regions of Poverty Bay, Hawke's Bay and the Wairarapa are now renowned around the world for their wine.
Any tour of the wineries has to take in Poverty Bay, a major grape-growing region, where the main centre of Gisborne was the first part of New Zealand sighted by Cook's expedition in 1769. Finding little, other than the wary local Maori, he named it Poverty Bay and sailed south to the bay he later named Hawke Bay after his boyhood hero Admiral Sir Edward Hawke (the name of the surrounding province has since evolved into Hawke's Bay). Here Cook had a clash with Maori at Cape Kidnappers, now the site of an impressive gannet colony.
Hawke's Bay has long been dubbed "the fruit bowl of New Zealand", and its orchard boughs still sag under the weight of apples, pears and peaches. The district, now one of New Zealand's foremost wine regions, is best visited from the waterfront city of Napier, famed for its Art Deco buildings, constructed after the city was flattened by a massive earthquake in 1931. Nearby Hastings suffered much the same fate and wove Spanish Mission-style buildings into the resulting Art Deco fabric, though this won't delay you long from continuing south into the sheep lands of the Wairarapa and its wonderfully accessible vineyards of Martinborough.
Access to the mountainous interior of this region is limited, with only six roads winding over or cutting through the full length of the ranges. The tortuous, scenic SH38 forges northwest from the small town of Wairoa, the gateway to the remote wooded mountains of Te Urewera National Park and beautiful Lake Waikaremoana.
Highlights
1 Gisborne Swim with the sharks off the coast of New Zealand's easternmost city.
2 Lake Waikaremoana Take in this picturesque lake on short hikes or the North Island's most prized multi-day tramp.
3 Napier Wander through the world's finest collection of small-scale Art Deco architecture to Napier's pine-shaded seafront promenade.
4 Cape Kidnappers Come face-to-beak with residents of the world's largest mainland gannet colony after a tractor ride along the beach.
5 Vineyards Sip to your heart‘s content in Hawke's Bay Wine Country, or stroll to almost a dozen fine wineries from appealing Martinborough.
6 Pukaha Mount Bruce National Wildlife Centre Observe some of the world's rarest birdlife thanks to the conservation heroics performed at this bushland sanctuary.