Hackfalls Arboretum

Hackfalls Arboretum is an arboretum in New Zealand. It was founded in the 1950s by Bob Berry. Hackfalls Arboretum is part of “Hackfalls Station”, a sheep and cattle farm of about 10 square kilometres, owned by the Berry family. Hackfalls is situated in Tiniroto, a tiny village in the eastern part of the North Island, between Gisborne (town) and Wairoa.
The area of the arboretum is 0.56 km². It stretches along the borders of two lakes. It holds about 3,500 species of trees and shrubs. The collection contains many different oaks "spaced in rolling pastureland, allowing each to develop fully, and limbed up to enable grass to grow underneath". Most important part of the collection are about 50 different taxa of Mexican oaks.

Tiniroto is situated on the inland road (the so-called Tiniroto Road, former State Highway (SH) 36) between Gisborne and Wairoa. The distance from Gisborne is about 60 km, from Wairoa 40. The Ruakaka Road is a gravel road of about 20 km, that leads from Tiniroto, with a wide curve, crossing the Hangaroa River two times, past Donneraille Park, back to the Tiniroto Road. Berry Road branches off from this Ruakaka Road about 1 km outside Tiniroto. 3 km further up on Berry Road is the homestead of Hackfalls. You have then passed Lake Kaikiore which together with Lake Karangata form the “wetlands” of Hackfalls Station. Lake Kaikiore is 5 ha, Lake Karangata 10 ha.

Altitude on Hackfalls Station varies between about 120 m and 388 m, being 270 m at the homestead. The hill country of the Tiniroto district was formed in a big landslide from the North and East which occurred thousands of years ago. The lakes around Tiniroto were formed then. On steeper slopes the soils are derived from a yellow clay. On more level areas the soils consist of volcanic ash deposits (pumice) of about 50 cm. The station has an average annual rainfall of about 1,650 mm, with a few light snowfalls expected each winter.

The Māori occupation brought fires which destroyed much of the original forest cover, except in ravines and near the Hangaroa River. From 1880 onward, European settlers cleared most of the remaining forest, scrubs and ferns, replacing it by grassland. At Hackfalls a few remnants of the original plant cover remain, the largest of which consists of about 40,000 square metres, protected by a Queen Elizabeth II Trust covenant since 1985.

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