Hastings District: Trails, Gardens and Active Days

In Hastings District, experiences range from heritage trails and cycle trails to gardens, wine tasting and white-water rafting. You can also drive to the summit of Te Mata Peak. This gives you the option of choosing different focuses for your trip, rather than building your stay around a single activity.

Cultural Trails and Views

The Hastings heritage trails take visitors through cultural, historical and scenic highlights. According to visitor information from Hastings District Council dated 4 May 2026, the trails are open year-round and free to access; no booking is required. If this access is important to your plans, check the information again before your visit.

For an outing with a different focus, visitors can drive along Te Mata Peak Road to the summit of Te Mata Peak. The Hawke’s Bay Trails offer another way to experience Hastings District: 200 kilometres of easy-to-ride cycle trails through Hastings District and Napier. The trails are among New Zealand’s 23 Great Rides. This means that, alongside the cultural and historical themes of the heritage trails, longer cycling outings are another concrete trip idea to choose from.

Gardens, Roses and Nature

Osmanthus Garden, a traditional Chinese-style garden, is located in Cornwall Park in Hastings District. Its features include a large pond, pavilions, Friendship Bridge and Crooked Bridge, as well as bamboo and fragrant osmanthus plants. The bridges and pond create distinctive focal points; the plants add fragrance and varied forms to the designed landscape.

Frimley Park offers a different character. The reserve is designed in the style of an English landscape park and features more than 5,500 roses in formal gardens. The park also has a playground with bongo drums, speaking tubes, a wheelchair-accessible carousel, swings, slides, a rope climbing structure and a scooter track. Frimley Park thus combines landscaped garden areas with a dedicated play area.

Plants and native wildlife are the focus at Guthrie-Smith Arboretum: it is an important collection site for many plant species and a refuge for birds and native wildlife. A network of paths connects throughout the site. This makes it a different kind of nature experience from the formal gardens of Frimley Park or the traditional style of Osmanthus Garden.

Cycling, White-Water Rafting and Wine

The activities also differ considerably in the time they require. Mohaka Rafting offers full-day and multi-day adventures on white water graded 2, 3 and 5 in Hastings District. When planning, both the intended duration and the stated white-water grades matter. Those who would rather plan a wine tasting can find an experience featuring Hawke’s Bay wines at Elephant Hill.

When looking for a holiday rental, it is worth first deciding which experiences you want to shape your trip: cycle trails, cultural and historical themes, gardens, wine tasting or white-water rafting. This way, your choice of where to stay is guided by what you want to do in Hastings District, without letting a single type of holiday dictate your itinerary.

Discover more destinations

Discover more destinations: Hastings, Clive, Poukawa, Te Awanga, Maraekakaho, Waiwhare, Clifton, Karamu, Tuki Tuki, Kahuranaki.

For the broader travel overview: Hawkes Bay.