First place to see the summer sun, Tairāwhiti Gisborne captures the very best of Nz in one region. Here's why it should be first option for a summer getaway.
Take everything that constitutes a great vacation in Aotearoa New Zealand – sun, beaches, gourmet food and wine, adrenalin excitement – and weave in unique cultural experiences that can't be located elsewhere. You've Tairāwhiti Gisborne.
It's “Gizzy”, the surfing Mecca. It's biking remote trails or through stunning vineyards. Meeting wild stingrays within their natural environment and thrilling to “the best free fun you might have in New Zealand”. It's watching the dawn in the first place to determine summer time sun.
All this, and much more, is just over an hour's flight from Auckland or Wellington.
Where better to start your exploration than Hikurangi, the sacred mountain that welcomes the new day for much of the season? The mountain's kaitiaki, Ngāti Porou iwi, has started offering guided tours so people can better understand its history. The Maunga Hikurangi Experience – Journey to First Light takes tourists in the 1750m mountain.
From the mountain towards the sea
Tairāwhiti may be the way to obtain many of our history and culture – like this of Paikea, celebrated in the Whale Rider legend, book and movie – as well as the coast provides a selection of experiences unlike any other in the country.
Waka Voyagers Tairāwhiti offers unique sailing experiences aboard traditional waka hourua, the double-hulled canoe that carried the first settlers here. One of only nine of those craft on the planet, one can learn the ancient art of navigation through the sun, moon, stars, waves, winds, clouds and birds over the Pacific around 1000 in the past.
In the town, the Cook Landing Site National Historic Reserve commemorates the ecu arrival in 1769. It's also the landing host to the Horouta and Te Ikaroa-a-Rauru waka which carried Māori for the district, as the new Puhi Kai Iti space represents.
For many summer visitors, the region is about the surf, with plenty of breaks for beginner, intermediate and expert boardriders. With great beaches after the primary street (Waikanae, Midway) and up and down the coast (Sponge Bay, Wainui) it's little wonder that professionals for example Maz Quinn and Ricardo Christie call these waters home.
Beneath the waves, Dive Tatapouri is famous for interactive reef tours with wild stingrays, eagle rays along with other marine life; at low tide. Meeting wild stingrays inside their environment is an unforgettable adventure, voted one of the world's best marine activities.
Who could miss “the best free fun you could have in New Zealand”? Rere Rockslide is a 60m natural formation that draws hundreds every single day in summer. In the riverbank you are taking a tyre tube, bodyboard, yoga mat or something like that smooth, begin towards the water, hop on and hang on, riding the present to the pool at the end.
Back on dry land, the location owns a few of the country's best cycling. The three Motu Trails have something for everyone, from coastal scenery with opportunities for picnics and swimming to mountain biking through fabulous forest along with a hidden valley. The trails can be linked in to a 91km loop or split into rides for many ages and skills.
Gisborne Railbike provides a new and various experience. Two conventional bikes are linked so riders can pedal side-by-side over the coastal railway track between Gisborne and Wairoa. Itineraries incorporate a relaxed three-hour, 32km ride through bush and tunnels towards the Gulf of mexico along with a one-hour meander through vineyards and countryside.
Cycle Gisborne includes a fleet of on- and off-road cycles and routes. A common choice is the gourmet vineyard tour along country roads, the opportunity to taste the district's produce (it grows much of the fruit and veggies within your supermarket) and famed wines.
Here's another first
This is among the country's oldest winegrowing regions, known worldwide because of its whites – fruit-driven and full-flavoured chardonnay, bright pinot gris, viognier, gewürztraminer and chenin blanc. The majority are available at the cellar doors of enormous producers and boutique wineries.
Garden lovers is going to be attracted to Eastwoodhill, 130ha planted in exotic and native trees, shrubs and climbers in 1910, elegantly described by world-renowned environmentalist David Bellamy as “a Garden of Eden held altogether through the greatest of the world's trees.”
Time your visit right, and locations in the region supply the chance to watch the dawn of a new space age, as Rocket Lab blasts removed from its Mahia Peninsula launchpad. In the end those centuries of pioneering voyages, often there is new things under the sun in Tairāwhiti Gisborne.
To learn more about the land in the first light, visit www. tairawhitigisborne.co.nz/visit/
Getting there
Air Nz offers nonstop flights to Gisborne from Auckland and Wellington with connections available over the domestic network; with seat, seat+bag, flexitime or flexidate fares. Auckland-Gisborne flights take 65 minutes and Wellington-Gisborne flights take 75 minutes. For more details visit airnewzealand.co.nz/flights-to-gisborne
