The Cape Kidnappers peninsula has a rich history in both Maori and European settlement.
The Cape Kidnappers peninsula has a rich history in both Maori and European settlement.
The most significant historical sites to be found today in the Cape Kidnappers peninsula area include a Maori pa (fortified village) site at the northern end of Ocean Beach and two historic sheep and cattle station homesteads which mark the arrival of European farmers in the area. In addition, remnants of an old whaling station and the shipwreck of 'The Go Ahead' can be found at Flat Rock.
In the sixteenth century, Taraia, great-grandson of the great and prolific chief Kahungunu, established the large Maori tribe of Ngati Kahungunu which eventually colonised the eastern side of the North Island from Poverty Bay to Wairarapa. The Maori pa site at the remote northern end of Ocean Beach is almost certainly traced to descendants of Ngati Kahungunu.
Captain James Cook and the crew of the HMS Endeavour were probably the first Europeans to set eyes upon Hawke's Bay in October 1769. Cook named the bay after Sir Edward Hawke, First Lord of the Admiralty.
It was also Captain Cook who named Cape Kidnappers after a skermish with local Maori when his Tahitian cabin boy was kidnapped but recovered after an exchange of gunfire. Whalers and flax traders later arrived in the area in the early 1800s while sheep farming began from the mid-1800s.