Waimarama

Waimarama Beach

Like guardian and protector Bare Island stands at sea out from the beach of Waimarama, which stretches from North to South on the east coast, with wide sweeping expanses of golden sands and deep blue sea.  On a great day the swell bring lines of breakers which roll into the bay and shallow sandy beach, making this a popular spot for tourists and locals. 

The beach community is a renowned loved place to relax and enjoy for Hawke's Bay people, with its quaint wooden cottages and rambling gardens falling over roadside fences dotted with the new homes built behind Tauputa hedges and wooden gates.  The community and its little roads and grass verges has the atmosphere of a coastal village: sleepy in week days and a bustling vibrancy with visitors on weekends.

Waimarama is steeped in Maori history and documented in the Historical Map of  fact and fable by Lt.Col R.M Bell M.B.E  E.D. Waimarama is where Taewha landed here from the Takitimu. Established a school of learning at Maunga Wharau and a Whare Maire named Pae-Whenua. One of the sea anchors of the Takitimu is said to be the landward rock Taupanga, visible at low tide 50m south of the old bathing sheds.  The Kuku rocks are said to be the skids of the Takitimu and Mukuaka (Capston Rock) to be the other sea anchor of the Takitimu dropped at sea and visible at low tide between Te Puka and Bare Island.

Bare Island

Bare Island known as Motu-O-Kura lies out from the beach of Waimarama, said to be named after a woman Kura who would dive down to the aquifer spilling fresh water on the south-west side of the Island to gather fresh water during a seige.


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