Cape Coast Hidden Heritage
The area now known as the Cape Coast remained something of a footnote in the local history
books for many decades, a largely undocumented cluster of coastal villages out on the edge, with
an ill-defined and sporadically recorded story.
Looking a little deeper however, a rich history is being uncovered that credits this relatively small coastal
stretch with a pivotal place in local and Aotearoa-New Zealand’s pre-colonial history including the story of
the land which has been fought over, defended, divided, broken up and changed hands over many
generations.
The story begins before Ngati Kahungunu became the dominant tribal group in Hawke’s Bay around 1500
A.D with the arrival of Whatonga and his wife Hotuwaipara aboard the Kurahaupō waka (canoe)
around 1250–1300 AD.
Whatonga, the captain of the Kurahaupō was the grandson of the great Polynesian navigator Kupe, and
established a base at Te Awanga on the northern edge of Maui’s double fishhook which loops from Te
Kauwae-a-Māui (Cape Kidnappers) to Mahia Peninsula.
Whatonga’s descendants including his son Tara went on to name, claim and settle vast areas of the lower
North Island including the top of the South Island as they intermarried and founded many prominent iwi
(tribes) including Rangitane.
Heretaunga, the fertile plains of the wider Hastings region was named for the large meeting house
Whatonga established in the foothills of Cape Kidnappers to the south of Te Awanga. Heretaunga can
have several meanings, ‘a place where canoes were tied up’ a gathering place or a place of many
pathways with a strong connection to the land, associated with fertility and abundance.
Heretaunga is an apt name for an area known for decades as the fruit bowl of New Zealand, and more
recently marketed with the catch phrase ‘great things grow here’.
At the Te Awanga end of the Cape Coast and high up on Cape itself, there is archaeological evidence of
several pre-colonial Maori habitations, including fortifications and a fishing village near a former lagoon at
Clifton
A costly encounter
The prominent outcrop at the southern end of the Cape Coast was named Cape Kidnappers by Captain
James Cook after an unfortunate encounter off the coast in October 1769 when Maori lives were lost after
a trading deal went wrong.
An act of Parliament in 2018 restored a dual name to the much photographed, light refracting iconic landscape, which is now officially ‘Cape Kidnappers / Te Kauwae-a-Māui’. The wider curve of Hawke’s Bay is now most frequently referred to as Te Matau-a-Maui or Maui’s fishhook based on the exploits of the hero of myth and legend who it is said fished up Te Ika-a-Maui (the great fish) or the North Island.
The double-pronged hook, formed from his grandmother’s jawbone, allegedly foul hooked ‘the fish’ in the side at the mountain Whakapūnake between Wairoa and Gisborne which can be seen on a clear day across the waters from Te Kauwae-a-Maui (the jawbone).
A search for an original Maori name for the Cape Coast area has no clear answers, although Miriam Macgregor in Early Stations of Hawke’s Bay suggests “the district” may have been known as Waipureku, the “cooking whare, near the water”. (1)
Pat Parson agrees the name Waipureku may have originally applied to the Maori pa and village on the northern side of the Tukituki River and a fishing village on the southern side. Another definition of Waipureku is ‘meeting of the waters’, which is appropriate, especially if applied to both the Tukituki and Ngaruroro rivers which at times washed down from the hills forming a large lagoon and single mouth to the sea around three islands that have since disappeared.
What we now call the Cape Coast was once a massive estate known as Clive Grange acquired by W.B
(Barney) Rhodes and his brothers under dubious circumstances in 1839 and then by military leader
Colonel George Whitmore before being divided into smaller farms and estates, lifestyle blocks,
horticultural, forestry and residential developments.
Clive Grange, named from the original sheep station that took up much of the coastal area from the
1850s, began to flourish with the opening of Black Bridge in 1888 with a growing number of residences
and beachside sub-divisions now complementing the three major farms.
New name agreed
In 1913 the New Zealand Post & Telegraph (NZP&T) Department tried to impose a new name that did not
sit well with the locals. It wanted to “adopt the more euphonical Maori appellation” Tahumoana (seaside).
The decision came just ahead of connecting a telephone line and adding the first Post Office on 21 April
as part of the general store in Grange Rd. (2)
Locals, then as now, objected to the lack of consultation around renaming their evolving coastal village. On 10 June, the NZPO agreed the new name would be Haumoana, meaning sea breeze, although it could also imply breath, wind or vitality of the ocean.
Just who put forward the new name is not known but Hana Scott (daughter of Jacob Scott) suggests it
may have come from her great grandfather who grew up at Ohinemutu on the shore of Lake Rotorua on
Haumoana St which runs parallel to the lakeside. (3)
Old timers claim Haumoana stretched to the western side of the Black Bridge embracing large tracts of rich farmland and orchards along Tukituki Rd and as far as Lawn Rd. It allegedly embraced Matahiwi marae and Mangapapa, Sir James Wattie’s former residence, which he built after he moved from Haumoana and his canning business became a national success.
The popular Haumoana beach and campground south of the Tukituki river mouth was widely known
during the early 1890s as a ‘health resort’ although picnickers and overnight visitors were left to their own
devices after being delivered to their destination by horse and gig for weekend stays.
Distinguishing features are the estuary where fish spawn, and the coastal lagoons and wetlands along Beach Rd, scooped out when the Tukutuki River burst its banks and submerged the tentative township in the 1897 flood. (4)
Riverbed to residential
Haumoana village is based on ancient riverbed, much of it reverting to swamp before being reclaimed for
sheep and cattle grazing then divided into smaller farms and residential subdivisions in the first decades
of the 1900s. Haumoana north was home to permanent residents while most of the holiday homes were in south Haumoana and toward Te Awanga. The western outskirts toward Clive were mainly swamp until the land was drained and broken in for farms and orchards.
The late Hiraani Logan (nee Scott) who lived with her family at the Grange Homestead from the 1920s spoke of an ‘us and them’ class structure that emerged between Te Awanga and Haumoana. “Many of the people who lived in Haumoana were workers, including those commuting to the freezing works at Whakatu while Te Awanga was home to many of the wealthier farmers in the district”.
Flooding from the river and overtopping from the sea, particularly during high tides and prevailing winds is something the village has had to deal with for decades, eased only by floodbanks and ad hoc protection works including the Tukituki groyne installed by the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council (HBRC) at the river mouth in 1999.
The groyne protects the domain from flooding, keeps the river mouth in check and has restored 600-800 metres of Haumoana Beach from serious erosion. Today it’s a popular place for locals to congregate with the exclamation “meet you at the groyne”. (5)
Oats paddock to village
Te Awanga was originally part of the 13,500 acre (5463 ha) Kidnappers Station, which stretched from the
meandering boundary of the Tukituki river along the valley of the same name to the south side of Cape
Kidnappers and Ocean Beach.
The land was acquired from Maori then on-sold or leased by the Crown to Joseph Rhodes and others before most of it was purchased by Scotsman James Gillespie Gordon between 1859-61 for Clifton Station. The part that became Te Awanga village was originally the Clifton Station oats paddock.
In the 1850s, during land negotiations between the Crown, local chief Te Moananui and others, an
unknown portion of the land was allegedly set aside for a Maori reserve but at the last minute left out of
the official documentation, says local historian Pat Parsons. (6)
The Maraetotara River which has its origins in Mohi’s bush at Waimarama used to flow midway between present day Te Awanga and Clifton with the swampy lowlands subject to heavy flooding. There was a large estuary at the river mouth which attracted campers and visitors from the late 1800s and further south toward Clifton Beach were several lagoons and the site of an established Maori fishing village.
Among the growing number of holidaymakers visiting the area from the early 1900s there w
as always the hope that someone with a horse and cart or sturdy vehicle might offer a trip around to Cape Kidnappers to see the gannets.
As the area grew in popularity with squatters and visitors the Gordon’s began clearing the swamp, tussock and flax for subdivisions, for those who wanted holiday batches or more permanent homes.
Today the Hastings City Council (HDC) logo features a graceful gannet over Cape Kidnappers. The
gannets have been nesting at Cape Kidnappers since the 1870s, with overland and coastal operators
taking visitors to view this largest southern hemisphere inland colony between November and May each year.
After consenting and health and safety concerns resulting from rock falls along the beach the pioneering
Gannet Beach Adventures, a popular tractor and trailer coastal trip to the gannets, was shut down in 2019
after nearly 70 years.
Te Awanga village evolved over several decades as families built rugged baches on the edges of swamp
land or on the former riverbed.
Quake drops coast
After the devastating 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake, the mouth of the river moved north to its present
location, the lagoons were washed out and what was left of the estuary, now known as Te Awanga
Lagoon was greatly diminished.
The quake dramatically impacted the coastline's topography. Land was uplifted north of Napier by as
much as 2.7m and subsided along the Cape Coast by up to one metre. The rate of erosion increased with
the natural processes attempting to restore the ‘crenulate’ share of the shoreline.
There’s an ongoing battle for protection works to secure the coastline from further depletion while gravel
continues to travel south and the beaches of Clive, Napier and Westshore acquire more material.
Enigmatic haven
The Cape Coast has always been slightly outside of mainstream political and geographical concerns, a
situation exacerbated by the fact many official records were destroyed in the 1931 earthquake and again
in the early 1960s when the Hastings District Council archives were ravaged by fire.
It also fell between the cracks during the merging of the Hawke’s Bay Harbour Board and Hawke’s Bay
County Council into the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.
In Boyd’s history of Hastings, City of the Plains (1984), commissioned by the Hastings District Council,
there is a single mention each of Haumoana, Te Awanga (Clive Grange: see Haumoana) and Clifton, all
in the same paragraph. (7) Matthew Wright’s history of Havelock North serves little better with six
references to Te Awanga as part of a shared history. (8) In his Hawke’s Bay, the History of a Province
there’s a single mention of Te Awanga. (9)
Haumoana, Te Awanga and Clifton were part of the Waipureku Riding and then the Clive Ward of the
Hawke’s Bay County Council until local body restructuring in December 1990 saw the responsibility fall to
Hastings District Council.
The ‘Welcome to Te Awanga’ and ‘Welcome to Haumoana’ signs are about a kilometre apart
with the artifcial demarcation line allegedly falling somewhere between the Cape View
Corner shops to an arbitrary point past the Clifton Reserve free camping area known as ‘the
gap’.
Former Hastings District councillor Rod Heaps, related to the pioneering Burden family of Te Awanga,
insists the white Bridge in front of the award-winning Elephant Hill Winery marked the spot, although the
postal area runs back through the Tuki Tuki Valley.
The boundary confusion is perpetuated by the fact Heretaunga Ward covers the villages
while much of the Tuki Tuki Valley is allocated to the Hastings Ward.
In recent years there’s been a renewed focus on protecting, restoring and encouraging development and
growth across the Cape Coast which has increasingly become a destination for locals and tourists for ‘wining, dining, playing and staying’. A large rock revetment wall at Clifton curbed long-term erosion at the motor camp and marine club with further limestone rock protection completed at Cape View Corner commercial centre completed in 2022.
The first stage of further protection at Te Awanga was in place in early 2025 with the construction of an
ecoreef in front of the lagoon to protect the carpark used by surfers and the lagoon which is part of the
storm water system.
Further protection plans to help bolster the coast against the worst impacts of erosion and inundation are
being considered as part of the Clifton to Tangoio Coastal Hazards Strategy 2020.
Te Matau-a-Maui Art and Heritage Trail from Black Bridge to Clifton, initiated by the local community as
part of Hastings place-based plan with support from sponsors, tells the story of the hidden heritage of the
Cape Coast through public art, kiosks with curated graphical information and strategically placed marker
post
NB: You can dive deeper in to the Cape Coast history including seminal moments and events and profiles of some of its more colourful characters by visiting the Cape Coast Art & Heritage site:
Sources
1. MacGregor, Early Stations of Hawke’s Bay, 1970, p.39
2. Hastings Standard, 20 March 1913
3. Hana Scott research conveyed by Jacob Scott 03-03-21.
4. Hastings District Plan, Haumoana-Te Awanga Strategic Management, March 2013
5. See Cape Coast Flood Protection Group for a detailed timeline of protection issues
6. Pat Parsons interviews 2017, 2018
7. M.B Boyd, City of the Plains, A History of Hastings, Victoria University Press (for Hastings City Council), 1984.
8. Wright, Matthew, Havelock North – The History of a Village, Hastings District Council, 1996
9. Wright, Matthew, Hawke's Bay – The History of a Province (Dunmore Press, Palmerston North