Poverty Bay
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Poverty Bay is the largest of several small bays on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island to the north of Hawke Bay. It stretches for 10 kilometres from Young Nick's Head in the southwest to Tuahine Point in the northeast. The city of Gisborne is located on the northern shore of the bay. The name is often used by extension to refer to the entire area surrounding the city of Gisborne.
The first European known to have set foot in New Zealand, Captain James Cook, did so here on October 7, 1769. This first meeting led to the deaths of 6 local Maori during skirmishes with the crew, due to a misinterpretation of the traditional Maori challenge. Cook was unable to gain many of the provisions he and his crew needed at the bay, and for this reason gave it its name.
In 1868 Te Kooti, a Maori 'rebel' leader, landed at Whareongaonga Bay, near Young Nick's Head in Poverty Bay, with 300 odd mostly Hauhau warriors with women and children, in the schooner "Rifleman". Having overcome the crew without bloodshed and made an escape from the Chatham Islands where he and these Hauhau Maori were incarcerated without trial. From there he ventured inland to wage guerilla war on the armed constabulary and sympathetic Maori for several years, as well as several raids on settlers and antipathetic Maori villages.
Poverty Bay is actually one of the more fertile areas of New Zealand and famous for its Chardonnay, fruit, vegetables and avocados, with abundant sunshine and fertile alluvial soil.
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