The Waka of Plenty (Te Waka Huhua) is the second of eight to be installed along the trail and Cape Coast Arts and Heritage Trust trustee Keith Newman says it affirms the region's branding that "Great things grow here".
"The Cape Coast is an ideal climate, fertile soil and long growing season and its fishing season, evidenced when the gannets arrive from early October with regular boil-ups and hopeful locals and visitors with their lines out along the beach," Newman said.
Once the swampy lowlands were broken in and European sheep farms were divided into smaller blocks, land at the Cape Coast was used for cropping, market gardens and orchards.
Before World War I, Gerhard Husheer grew 200 acres of tobacco from Parkhill down to the coast. The area was singled out for wine industry development in a 1903 report from government expert Romeo Bragato.
The earliest vintner, Anthony Vidal, learned the craft in Whanganui from his uncle, acclaimed winemaker, Joseph Soler. Vidal, found the climate and river gravels ideal for grapes, establishing a vineyard in 1915 at the present-day site of Clearview Estate Winery.
Later, adjoining blocks grew grass seed and provided peas, corn, tomatoes, beetroot, apricots, peaches and other produce for the canneries of James Nelson Williams and James Wattie.
The coastal region with its Mediterranean conditions and warm sea air is today one of Hawke's Bay's primary wine growing areas.
Cape Coast winemaking experienced a resurgence from the 1980s with the success of Clearview Estate, Te Awanga Estate, Beach House Wines and Elephant Hill producing white and red wines with considerable body and intensity of flavour.
Hastings mayor Sandra Hazlehurst will attend the unveiling with Haumoana School performing an original song about valuing the environment.
The public are welcome to attend the opening which takes place 11.30am at Clifton Rd Reserve, Te Awanga, Thursday, October 31.
