Kororipo Heritage Park

Kororipo Heritage Park is at the end of Kerikeri Inlet. The precinct is home to Stone Store, Kemp House, Kororipo Pa and Rewa’s Village. Aotearoa’s modern identity was forged in this area, it is where Maori and Europeans interacted and lived together. Visitors can easily spend half a day mulling over goods in the Stone Store, wondering about people’s lives in Kemp House and watching the placid waters of the inlet.

• Stone Store is the oldest stone building in the country. It has been continuously trading since 1833, choc full of collectables fashioned in the form of nineteenth century household goods it is hard to resist a cute wooden hearth brush. Perhaps you don’t have a hearth, buy it anyway.
• Kemp House, the oldest surviving house in the country is open to guided tours departing from the Stone Store. Maori and European carpenters fashioned the home using hand sawn timbers. The house is framed by a restored heritage garden reflecting nineteenth century planting.
• Adjacent to the European settler buildings is Kororipo Pa with its commanding views. Your imagination can sweep across the inlet with its 360c views and visualise the opportunities a strategic Maori leader capitalised on. Hongi Heki was pivotal in the Maori and European dynamic interface. There are explanatory plaques describing key areas within the remains of the fortified Pa structure.
• Rewa’s Village is a replica pre-European Māori fishing village named after Ngāpuhi chief Rewa. The village is worth a visit to observe the extensive garden of native plants important to pre-European Maori.