Iwi misses out in Hawke’s Bay sheep and cattle station Kahurānaki bid

Kahurānaki, the ancestral mountain of the Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti hapū and Hawke's Bay-Wairarapa iwi Ngāti Kahungunu and outstanding geographical feature of Kahurānaki Station, which is being sold to New Zealand owners intending to continue farming the property. Photo / Paul Taylor

Iconic Hawke’s Bay sheep and cattle station Kahurānaki is being sold to New Zealand buyers who intend to continue farming the 1196 hectares and its famed mountain.

While committed to confidentiality regarding the sale, the confirmation has been provided by rural estate specialist Duncan McKinnon, who marketed the property for NZR and vendors in whose family the property south of Havelock North has been owned for more than a century.

Rumour of a sale overseas and a forestry future for the property and the ancestral mountain had been circulating since tenders closed at the end of last week, but are believed to be untrue.

News of the sale, based on tenders called when the property was put on the market two months ago, has disappointed iwi who hoped to make a purchase so the mountain could return to Māori ownership.

The chairman of Hastings-based post-settlement governance entity Tamatea Pōkai Whenua Settlement Trust, which submitted an unsuccessful tender, has called an urgent board meeting after learning it was not accepted.

In a social media update on Thursday, Pōhatu Paku said it was with “great sadness” that he was informing iwi that the trust’s tender was not accepted - “with no scope for further engagement, including negotiation”.

He said the tender was based on “significant due diligence”, including an independent valuation by a registered valuer, but it was “not the party whose tender was accepted,” he wrote.

Bayden Barber, recently re-elected to a second term as chairman of wider Hawke’s Bay-Wairarapa iwi Ngāti Kahungunu, echoed the disappointment.

But he now looks forward to meeting the new owners and discussions around protection of the “maunga” from such influence as forestry or housing and the access which has been enjoyed with the goodwill of past owners.

“Access would be a high priority,” he said. “We wanted the mountain back, so we are really disappointed - gutted - that we didn’t get it back.”

Kahurānaki is the outstanding feature of the station and the wider landscape, with views from an elevation of 646 metres stretching in the east to the Pacific Ocean, Mahia Peninsula to the north east, and Ruapehu to the west, along with the outlook over the Heretaunga Plains.

Attention was drawn to the opportunity of a buy-back on an iwi-support donations platform and in a maunga to maunga trek originating in Northern Hawke’s Bay, including multiple sites of historical significance.

The trek concluded with an ascent of the mountain that holds significant cultural and historical importance in the Heretaunga region, particularly for Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti hapū and Ngāti Kahungunu iwi, serving as a navigational landmark and a site for ancient burial places (wāhi tapu).

It is also part of the story of the Tākitimu waka, the arrival of ancestors, and the pursuits of leaders over the centuries.