The Hawke’s Bay region has so much to offer. Of course its known for being home to some of New Zealand’s top vineyards, but even if you’re not a big drinker you can have a great weekend getaway in this beautiful and diverse part of the country.
Here’s our itinerary for you to have the perfect weekend exploring the Hawke’s Bay.
The main township for Hawke’s Bay is Napier which is a quirky city filled with art deco landmarks and palm tree lined streets. This is where you’ll find the cities airport with domestic flights from across New Zealand arriving and departing regularly.
The region is also home to the towns of Hastings, Havelock North, Lake Waikaremoana, Te Awanga, Mahi Peninsula, Wairoa, Waipukurau and Waipawa – each offering some beautiful landscapes and an excellent food and drink scene.
Of course a weekend isn’t long enough to visit everywhere, so here are some of our highlights and recommendations for enjoying your trip to the Hawke’s Bay.
Bell Rock Loop Track, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand
Shine Falls, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand
Clearview Estate, 194, Clifton Road, Te Awanga, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, 4180, New Zealand
Rasoi, 125, Marine Parade, Bluff Hill, Napier, Hawke’s Bay, 4001, New Zealand
Crazy Good, 2/87, Bridge Street, Ahuriri, Napier, Hawke’s Bay, 4110, New Zealand
Te Mata Peak, Hastings, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, 4294, New Zealand
Craggy Range, Waimarama Road, Hastings, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, 4294, New Zealand
Elephant Hill, Hastings, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand
Te Awanga Estate, Te Awanga, Hastings District, Hawke’s Bay, New Zealand
Accommodation
If you’re a party of 2-4 people, you’d like to stay somewhere with a hint of luxury but not too expensive, somewhere secluded but not too far out of the way, then we have the perfect place.
Te Awanga Estate vineyard in Hastings has opened a beautiful BnB above their cellar door, overlooking the vineyard and out to the ocean.
Considering this sounds to die for, and believe us it is, because they don’t advertise it on their website and you make your booking through BookaBach.com it’s very reasonably priced and often has availability.
For 4 people you’re looking at around $65 per night per person depending on what time of year you’re visiting. And even better, this includes a free bottle of their wine waiting for you in the fridge on your arrival and free tastings (when Covid settings allow them to go ahead).
We thought this was an absolute steal, especially considering the cost of staying at any other vineyard in the Hawke’s Bay area.
The best part for us was that after 6pm we were the only people in the entire vineyard. We had the place completely to ourselves, we could sit out on our balcony or down on the grass by the vines enjoying a cold glass of pinot gris and admiring the tranquility around us.
The BnB has one bedroom with the second bed being a pull out sofa bed in the main living area. There’s also a kitchen, bathroom, dining space, balcony with seating and a BBQ.
Staying here really made our trip very special so it would be our number 1 recommendation for your stay.
Day 1 – Arriving in Napier
Whether you’re driving to the Hawke’s Bay or flying, the chances are you’ll be passing through Napier, so make this your first stop.
If you’re in need of great coffee to kick-start your day then head to Crazy Good. The coffee certainly lives up to its name…
Explore the city
Take your time to explore Napier city centre. Take a stroll along the waterfront and admire the statues and sculptures, and check out the gardens filling the city with colour.
Don’t miss the Six Sisters – the only 6 buildings remaining after the 1931 earthquake which destroyed the town. And take note, as a result of this you can’t swim at Napier beach. There’s a huge drop off causing incredibly dangerous rip currents. It’s not too well sign posted so follow the locals lead and avoid anything but paddling your feet in the sea.
You can find the high street filled with shops just the road behind the waterfront. Stroll down the palm tree lined streets and keep your eyes peeled for street art above the shops and down little side streets – all the art deco really adds to the personality of this fabulous city.
Grab a bite
If you’re stopping for food we highly recommend Rasoi Indian Restaurant on the waterfront. I’ll confess walking past, the outside doesn’t look so appealing, but the interior is lovely and the food is heavenly.
Expect a diverse menu, huge portions and exotic flavours. We particularly enjoyed the seafood and meat platters to start and it was a great way to try a bit of everything!
Day 2 – Winery Hopping
Another reason to stay at Te Awanga Estate is how perfectly located it is for enjoying winery hopping, and how better to do that than by bike.
In fact even if you don’t like wine and don’t choose to winery hop, Hawke’s Bay is perfect for cycling and has hundreds of trails to choose from. It’s pretty flat compared to many other parts of New Zealand so there are trails suitable for all levels of riders.
Hiring Bikes
We would highly recommend hiring bikes from Coastal Wine Cycles in Hastings. Murray was incredibly helpful to us via email, on the phone and in person, helping us to plan our route. There are two main trails around the wineries in Hastings, one being 15km and passing 3 wineries and the other being 25km and passing 5 wineries.
We opted for the shorter trail and given the 30 degree heat, without a cloud in the sky, are glad we did! Don’t forget to double check opening days and times for all the wineries, and whether they require bookings for tastings or lunch to avoid disappointment.
The bikes themselves are both beautiful visually and seriously comfortable. I’m a real moaner when it comes to cycling but the seats were really padded, and the bike’s upright making it an easy and comfortable ride for city cruising. They even have his and hers styles and baskets to carry your wine purchases home!
Wine Tastings
As Murray will recommend, the best way to enjoy your tour of the vineyards is to do the biggest chunk of cycling first and then visiting Te Awanga Estate, Clearview Estate and Elephant Hill winery. We cycled for about 45 minutes following a back-country trail to get to Te Awanga and then 10 minutes between each winery and back to drop off the bikes after that.
Te Awanga makes a perfect first stop because it does delicious and reasonably priced lunch platters and pizzas. It’s got a really cool laid back feel to the winery with blankets out on the grass to lounge and enjoy a wine or three.
The only winery we were disappointed with during our time in Hawke’s Bay was Clearview Estate. The wine itself was lovely, but the service was slow and the staff member hosting our wine tasting failed to provide any substantial information and was rather lethargic. We’ll put it down to it being an incredibly busy long weekend and perhaps them being under staffed due to the border closures and the global pandemic.
It’s probably still worth a visit just because its on your cycle route and the wine is pretty delicious – most notably their pinot gris.
Elephant Hill Winery
Following Murray’s route saves the best winery till last. We all fell in love with Elephant Hill.
The incredibly modern and contemporary building can’t be missed for miles. The wine is all excellent, with our favourite being the rose and their 2012 Rania (dessert wine).
In stark contrast to our experience at Clearview just minutes before, our host at Elephant Hill was absolutely fantastic sharing her knowledge and evident passion for the wines and wine making process at Elephant Hill. The pours were large and you can select any 4 wines from the extensive list to try, no matter how expensive or what vintage they are.
We would recommend making a booking for Elephant Hill. When we visited they weren’t taking walk ins and do have limited seating areas.
When making your booking, we would recommend booking the last tasting slot at 3:30pm. This is because the winery does not keep open bottles of wine overnight for the tastings the next day. We couldn’t believe it when we were given 8 bottles of half opened bottles to take away with us completely for free! Needless to say this made our experience even better. We had a very fun evening of trying the other wines we hadn’t had the chance to at our tasting.
Day 3 – Hiking Te Mata Peak & Lunch at Craggy Range
Hawke’s Bay isn’t just about the food and drink scene. It also has some beautiful walking trails to explore the coastal landscape.
Sunrise in Hawke’s Bay
Te Mata Peak in Hastings has to be the best spot in the region to watch the sunrise. With multiple walking and cycling trails to reach the peak, its a stop not to miss.
Although you can drive up the peak, that’s no fun. We’d recommend taking the yellow walking trail (Karaka Wander) to the saddle.
From there join up with the blue walking trail (Rongokako Trail) and head up to the summit in time for the sunrise. It took us about 45 minutes so it wasn’t a ridiculously early start. The walk from the saddle lookout to the summit has an unobstructed view. This means you can enjoy the reds and oranges appearing in the sky before the sun appears on the horizon.
The walk isn’t particularly challenging, the drive to the carpark does most of the uphill for you, so there’s a steady climb but nothing too vigorous. The path is well signposted in the dark and well kept so there’s no challenges completing it in the dark.
A perfect way to start the day.
Wine Tasting at Craggy Range
When you’re up at the top of Te Mata Peak, if you look down you can see the impressive complex that is Craggy Range.
It is quite fitting to put theses two activities on the same day. They’re so interlinked and both offer some of the best of their kind for the region.
Wine tasting at Craggy Range is not just a chance to taste some fine wines. It is a high end, immersive experience. Our host Peter sat down with us and told us stories about the vineyards, the wine making, the history and of course the wines.
We tried a fantastic variety of different wines, all of which were exquisite. Then we were lucky enough to have a tour of the building seeing the full process in motion. We came away feeling like we had learned lots about Craggy Range, but even more about wine itself.
This is our favourite wine tasting to date and made us feel really special. It’s worth visiting on a separate day as you’ll want to commit an entire afternoon to enjoying the experience – comparatively we spent 35 minutes at Clearview’s wine tasting and 2 hours at Craggy’s.
Thanks to Peter for a real VIP experience and educating us on the marvel that is Craggy Range.
2021’s Best Vineyard in Australasia.
Voted 11th best vineyard in the world.
World’s Best Vineyards Awards
Our favourite lunch spot
What better way to end your trip than to enjoy lunch at one of Hawke’s Bays best wineries.
On Peter’s recommendation we ordered the shared menu at $95 per person. This gives you 8 different dishes, not including sides and you really won’t be needing dinner afterwards.
The chef’s talents were on full display with inventive flavour combinations using delicious local produce. We really enjoyed every single plate and of course it was topped off with excellent wine to complement it.
We were particularly impressed with their vegetarian dishes. Given that none of us are vegetarian and wouldn’t usually order these kinds of dishes, we were blown away by how interesting those creations were. I’d say based on what we tried if you’re vegetarian their veggie sharing menu is incredible!
Even though the food is very high end, the atmosphere in the restaurant was relaxed. It made for a perfect final meal to end a really wonderful visit to the Hawke’s Bay.
An alternative day for your Hawke’s Bay itinerary:
As we first mentioned, if you enjoy wine then Hawke’s Bay vineyards really must be explored. However, if you aren’t a big drinker there is still plenty of incredible things to do. So we wanted to suggest an alternative day to the first day, or if you have the time an extra day to add in to your itinerary in the Hawke’s Bay.
Hike Bell Rock
Driving 1.5 hours out of Hastings, you can feel like you’re worlds away from the land of wine. Instead winding your way through an enchanted forest.
Take a 2-3 hour return hike through this fascinating forest. You’ll come out to what looks like a scene from the Lion King. Bell Rock has multiple huge rock formations you can scramble onto and look out over a huge drop into a great valley and beyond.
The view is really breathtaking and the walk although mostly uphill isn’t too difficult. When we visited we had low-lying fog covering much of our view, but we all agreed it added an eerie feel and made it even more impressive when the cloud briefly separated to show just how high we were and how scary the drop was below us.
Shine Falls
Now we didn’t have time to swing by and see the Shine Falls, but its next door to the Bell Rock hike and is Hawke’s Bay’s tallest waterfall. Unless you’re short on time, I’d say its not going to be one to miss.
It takes around 1.5 hours return walk to reach the waterfall. All the pictures I’ve seen, and reviews I’ve read look very impressive.
“Rising 58 metres, Shine Falls is Hawke’s Bay’s most spectacular waterfall”
hawkesbaynz.com
It’s definitely one we’ve added to our New Zealand bucket list, so watch this space!
Book your trip to the Hawke’s Bay now
Whatever you decide to do, Hawke’s Bay is a beautiful region with lots of incredible things to see and do.
If you do anything on this list, we’re sure you won’t be disappointed. We already can’t wait to plan our next visit!
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