Good Morning Sunshine

The country’s earliest sunrise is just the first of Gisborne’s attractions. The people who live there are keen to share their particular passions for this beautiful and historic region.

Words: Jo Bates  Photographs: Minka Firth

She's baked a fruit flan, prepared breakfast and lunch for 13, wrangled 1800 hectares of her Eastland sheep and cattle station by 4WD and directed a group of wayward walkers. She may have outsourced the two-course evening meal but she did make the table her guests will dine from. A typical day in the life of Penny Hoogerbrug of Walk Gisborne, which offers two to three-day walks across private farm and coastal land, is not for withering types.

Or take Kay Weytmans. She’s done a full day as an intensive-care nurse at Gisborne Hospital, returned home to prepare hors d’oeuvres and dinner for seven and, when the guests leave well after 10pm, she’ll be back in the kitchen to make a lasagne for a function the following day. In their spare time you’ll find these women traversing the rugged countryside on their beloved horses and taking on the challenge of a local hunt during winter.

So where are the men of this captivating countryside and sparkling Pacific coastline? It’s a fair bet you’ll find them indulging their passions too. And history has set them exacting standards – with the likes of Te Kooti, the infamous warrior, and Captain James Cook who first set foot in Aotearoa at Gisborne, or Turanganui-a-Kiwa as the settlement was known, in 1769.

More recently, the enduring passion of another Cook – William Douglas Cook – has come to national renown. The enigmatic man who created Eastwoodhill, the National Arboretum of New Zealand, was a dazzlingly eccentric naturist. He donned a hat to protect against the sun and gumboots to protect against the spade and let nothing and no one stand in the way of realizing his dream. Motivated by conservation, he planted more than 18,000 trees at Eastwoodhill, the largest collection of Northern Hemisphere trees in the Southern Hemisphere.

A lunch stop along the Walk Gisborne rural
and coastal trail.

Stories of his single-mindedness are as abundant as his trees – he once put dinner on, returned to the garden, forgot about the stove and the house burnt down. William appreciated the finer things in life – he always had the dining table formally and immaculately set with crystal of his own design – but he pawned his chandeliers and Persian rugs and mortgaged the farm many times to buy yet more trees.

Kees Weytmans, a fifth-generation forester, is another "tree man". He and his wife Kay have established Knapdale Eco Lodge and, on a guided walk around their sustainably run property, Kees will bend your ear at every tree species and planting. You’re safe, though, once you reach the plateau for sunset, local wine, hors d’oeuvres and a blazing fire. It’s only natural that conversation should turn to the beautiful view as the rapidly changing evening light alters the surface of Gisborne’s expansive alluvial plains, the surrounding carved-out ranges and all the natural drama that is the landmark of Young Nick’s Head.

Print

123next ›last »