Hawke's Bay

Napier's Art Deco character exists because of tragedy rather than design intent from the start: a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in February 1931 killed 256 people and levelled most of the city centre, and the rebuild that followed over the next two years happened to coincide precisely with Art Deco's international peak as an architectural style. Local architects rebuilt in the fashionable style of the moment, and because so much of the city was destroyed and reconstructed within such a short window, Napier ended up with an unusually cohesive collection of Art Deco buildings — geometric facades, sunburst motifs and pastel colour schemes — concentrated in one compact, walkable centre rather than scattered piecemeal as in most cities. Guided walking tours and an annual Art Deco Festival celebrate the architecture directly.

Hawke's Bay's winemaking history stretches back to French missionaries planting vines in the 1850s, making it New Zealand's oldest wine-producing region by a significant margin, and its warm, dry climate and free-draining gravel soils — particularly in the Gimblett Gravels sub-region, an old riverbed of stony ground unusually well-suited to red varieties — have built an international reputation for Syrah and Bordeaux-style red blends distinct from the Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir New Zealand is more broadly known for. Cellar doors cluster around Napier and Hastings, many offering food alongside tastings, making the region a comfortable base for a day or two of wine touring by car or bike.

Lake Waikaremoana sits within Te Urewera, a vast, densely forested wilderness region holding deep spiritual and cultural significance for Ngāi Tūhoe, whose historical relationship with the land is reflected in Te Urewera's unique 2014 legal status as a legal entity in its own right rather than conventional Crown-administered parkland. The Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk circles the lake over three to four days through native forest largely untouched by development, offering a genuinely remote experience distinct from New Zealand's better-known Great Walks — fewer trampers, longer approach roads, and a wilderness character that rewards the extra effort of reaching it.