Qualla: Hawke's Bay

Hawke's Bay: Introduction

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Some cities are built. Hawke's Bay was rebuilt. At 10:47 on the morning of 3 February 1931, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake struck the region's twin cities of Napier and Hastings, killing 256 people and levelling the central business districts. The demolition rubble was dumped along the foreshore and turned into parks. Then the architects arrived, and what rose from the wreckage was something no one had planned: the most consistently Art Deco cityscape in the world. Today, Napier alone has over 100 Art Deco buildings in its CBD, most of them restored and heritage-listed, and the annual Art Deco Festival draws visitors who come to walk streets that look like a 1930s film set made real.

Read more: Hawke's Bay on Qualla

Hawke's Bay: The Heretaunga Plains

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hawke's Bay sits on the North Island's east coast, where the Heretaunga Plains stretch flat and fertile between the hills and the sea. The warm, dry, sunny climate made this sheep country first, then beef and dairy, then orchards, and finally vineyards. Today the region is one of...

Read more: Hawke's Bay on Qualla

Hawke's Bay: Quake and Reinvention

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The 1931 earthquake did not just destroy buildings. It rearranged the geography. The quake raised the land by several metres, draining the Ahuriri Lagoon entirely. The airport, surrounding farmland, and the modern suburbs of Onekawa, Pandora, Pirimai, and Tamatea all sit on what ...

Read more: Hawke's Bay on Qualla

Hawke's Bay: Cape Kidnappers and Te Mata

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Beyond the cities, the landscape offers dramatic contrasts. Cape Kidnappers, south of Hastings, hosts one of the world's largest mainland gannet colonies. Thousands of Australasian gannets nest on rocky headlands accessible by foot along the shore at low tide, and the panoramic v...

Read more: Hawke's Bay on Qualla

Hawke's Bay: An Original Province

Mon, 09 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Hawke's Bay was one of New Zealand's original colonial provinces, established when British settlers arrived in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The original province stretched from the 39th parallel, north of Napier, to the Manawatu River south of Woodville. This history survi...

Read more: Hawke's Bay on Qualla