Poverty Bay

The first European known to have set foot in New Zealand, Captain James Cook of HMS Endeavour, did so here on 7 October 1769, at which time the bay was known as Teoneroa ("the long beach").

Cook's first choice of name for the inlet, before the conflict, had been Endeavour Bay, as a memorial of the ship's first landing place in New Zealand.

Te Kooti and 300 mostly Hauhau warriors overcome the crew of the schooner Rifleman and escaped, with their women and children, from the Chatham Islands to Poverty Bay.

[8] The bay is fed by the Waipaoa River, whose catchment is 2,205 km2 (851 sq mi) – large enough for individual storms and events to have a small impact on the sedimentary outflow.

The river's alluvial buffering is also minimal, and 95% of sediments are trapped by subduction-related anticlines on the bay's seaward flank.