Flying Nun Backpackers | Affordable Accomodation for Backpackers and Surfers in Gisborne

Gizzy info

The Gisborne region is on the eastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It stretches from just north of Morere thermal springs in the south to the top of the East Cape. Its western boundaries include the townships of Matawai and Potaka. The region is adjacent to Hawke’s Bay in the south and the Bay of Plenty to the north-west.

The region is administered by the Gisborne District Council. Forty-six percent of the population are of European descent and 41 percent Maori. The remainder (13 percent) derive from other nationalities.

The district has New Zealand’s highest proportion of people of Maori descent and is one of the few places where Maori is commonly spoken as an everyday language. There are more than 100 marae (meeting area of a hapu, sub-tribe or family group, including a meeting house) in the district.

Gisborne, the first city in the world to see the sun each day, is located on the sunny East Coast of the North Island. The Maori name for the district is Tairawhiti which means "The coast upon which the sun shines across the water". Kaiti Beach, near the city, was where the Maori immigration Waka, Horouta, landed; and is also the first European landing place in New Zealand.

Captain Cook first surfed here - of course not him personally - in 1769. European settlement was established in 1831 and the colonialists established the trading post. Per requisite, it was soon to be named Gisborne after Sir William Gisborne who was at the time the Colonial Secretary of the occuping forces.

Maori

Prior to this the settlement was known to Maori as Turanga but unfortunately due to the inability of the occupiers to embrace the nuances of the indigenous language Turanga was summarily changed to Poverty Bay.

To Maori Turanga-a-Kiwa and the abbreviation, Turanga (trans. The stopping place of Kiwa), invokes the respect to ancestry and the thoughts of the being.

Turanga, Gisborne, became a borough in 1877 and a city in 1955.

Maori culture is intrinsic to the New Zealand phyche, all you have to do is try to pronounce a few place names.

How 'bout going to this site and havin' a practice. It is made for everybody but is geared for New Zealanders, hence the name. 100 words every New Zealander should know. It's a great site and gives you:

Video: of Maori protocol

Video: of Maori art

Audio: of Te Reo - The languague of the people

Weather

Excellent! We usually have warm summers and mild winters, warmer with El Nino and wetter with La Nina, but it is still one of the sunniest places in New Zealand with a 2200 hour yearly average of sunshine. The region's annual rainfall varies from about 1000mm near the coast to over 2500mm in the high country. Temperatures of 38°C have been recorded recently.

To find out some serious shit about today’s weather, tides and marine conditions as well as weekly forecasts, go to the serious site from the New Zealand Meterological Service.

Transport

Gisborne have daily passenger and freight services by plane and bus to most main North Island centres in the region ... well, you can go anywhere from here. We've got rail freight services and other things like, like, like, the local fishing port (they get crayfish, scallops, kina, paua and more). If you need any info for bus time tables and the depot location go to the Gisborne Information Centre website.

If you need information on Gisborne flight arrival and departure times visit the Air New Zealand information page. It's updated daily so get the whanau here.

Employment

You can find yourself some part time work while you are here. Follow this link to classified employment advertisements from the local newspaper The Gisborne Herald.

Vehicles

You may need to buy a vehicle while you are here to travel the coast. The guys at Bargain Cars (five minutes' walk from the Nun) can sort you out. They specialise in trustworthy, affordable cars and can make arrangements to buy it back from you when you finish with it. They are the recommended people in town. Go to the main street (Gladstone Street) and look for this sign:

They are open 7 days a week and you can contact Leon on +64 06 867 8368