Hawke’s Bay

Sun, two cities, and the best table in the country

A guide to living, working and settling on New Zealand’s sunny east coast — written for healthcare professionals, by the team who help them move.

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15 chapters Updated August 2026 Free

Welcome

The region that’s hardest to argue against.

Hawke’s Bay is a wide sunlit crescent on the east coast — Napier on the northern arm, rebuilt in Art Deco after the 1931 earthquake, and Hastings twenty minutes inland across the Heretaunga plain. Between them, orchards, vineyards and some of the best soil in the country.

The base hospital is in Hastings, serving a hundred and eighty thousand people from Wairoa in the north to Central Hawke’s Bay in the south. Real breadth, a substantial equity agenda in the heartland of Ngāti Kahungunu, and a rural catchment that reaches a long way.

On most measures a clinician feels — sunshine, commute, housing cost, what’s on the table at the weekend — this region does very well. The costs are the four hours to Wellington, real deprivation in parts of it, and a recovery from Cyclone Gabrielle that is well advanced but not finished.

Nau mai, haere mai ki Te Matau-a-Māui.

Ngā mihi nui — the Ethicare team

Rows of vines in a Hawke's Bay vineyard with hills beyond — Cellar doors · twenty minutes from home

Hawke’s Bay, in short

The five-second version

~180k

People in the region

20 min

Between the two cities

2,200+

Sunshine hours a year

~4 hrs

To tertiary care

Where

Te Matau-a-Māui — the east coast crescent, plain between the cities, ranges behind

Climate

The closest the North Island gets to Mediterranean. Hot dry summers, mild coastal winters

Main hospital

A base hospital in Hastings serving the whole region, with a wide rural catchment

Getting home

Domestic flights from Napier; Auckland or Wellington for long-haul

Contents

What’s inside

Fifteen chapters in five parts. Nine are written for Hawke’s Bay; the rest are national and live once in Moving to New Zealand, so you only read them once.

Part one · Deciding

01 Welcome to Hawke’s BayThe sunny east coast in nine numbers — and six things you only learn once you’re here Read now → 02 Why Hawke’s BayThe arithmetic, a typical week, and where else we might point you Read now → 03 Hawke’s Bay at a glanceSun, drought, the fish-hook coast — and where the Gabrielle recovery stands Read now →

Part two · The region

04 Healthcare in Hawke’s BayA base hospital in Hastings, a wide rural catchment, and equity at the centre of the work Read now → 05 Where clinicians liveNapier or Hastings — fourteen places compared, and the question you decide first Read now → 06 Getting aroundTwenty minutes between the cities, 200km of flat cycle trail, and the roads out Read now →

Part three · Money & home

07 Cost of livingA Tauranga lifestyle for less — and the one new thing to check after the cyclone Read now → 08 Renting a homeYour application pack, bond, tenancy rights and the Healthy Homes standards Shared · national 09 Money, tax & bankingIRD numbers, KiwiSaver, opening an account and sending money home Shared · national

Part four · Everyday life

10 Food, wine & the everydayGimblett Gravels reds, the best farmers’ market in the country, orchards everywhere Read now → 11 Beaches, Te Mata Peak & wine countrySurf half an hour away, a gannet colony, and cellar doors twenty minutes from home Read now → 12 Driving & licencesConverting your licence, buying a car, a warrant of fitness and registration Shared · national

Part five · Belonging

13 Te ao Māori at workPronunciation, the words you will hear on the ward, and marae etiquette Shared · national 14 Finding your feet & your peopleHow friendship works here, and building a life outside the hospital Shared · national 15 Visas, registration & the moveWhich visa, what your qualification is worth here, and the order things happen in Shared · national

Art Deco buildings along a sunlit Napier street — Napier · rebuilt in Art Deco after 1931

Sophie’s insight

Hawke’s Bay is the region I find hardest to argue against. A base hospital, equity work, two cities twenty minutes apart, and some of the best food and wine in the southern hemisphere — at less than the Bay of Plenty costs. The people I place here tend to stay.

Sophie Careem

Founder, Ethicare Resourcing

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