Acacia Bay is a community on a small inlet on the western shores of Tapuaeharuru Bay,

Lake Taupō Lake Taupō (also spelled Taupo; mi, Taupō-nui-a-Tia or ) is a large crater lake in New Zealand's North Island, located in the caldera of the Taupō Volcano. The lake is the namesake of the town of Taupō, which sits on a bay in the lake's nor ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. There are four main beach areas. It is located approximately 2 miles west of

Taupō Taupō (), sometimes written Taupo, is a town on the north-eastern shore of Lake Taupō, New Zealand's largest lake, in the central North Island. It is the largest urban area of the Taupō District, and the second-largest urban area in the Wai ...

Demographics

Acacia Bay covers and had an estimated population of as of with a population density of people per km². Acacia Bay had a population of 1,653 at the

2018 New Zealand census Eighteen or 18 may refer to: * 18 (number), the natural number following 17 and preceding 19 * one of the years 18 BC, AD 18, 1918, 2018 Film, television and entertainment * ''18'' (film), a 1993 Taiwanese experimental film based on the sho ...

, an increase of 228 people (16.0%) since the 2013 census, and an increase of 420 people (34.1%) since the

2006 census 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

. There were 660 households, comprising 825 males and 825 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.0 males per female. The median age was 50.8 years (compared with 37.4 years nationally), with 264 people (16.0%) aged under 15 years, 180 (10.9%) aged 15 to 29, 783 (47.4%) aged 30 to 64, and 420 (25.4%) aged 65 or older. Ethnicities were 94.9% European/

Pākehā Pākehā (or Pakeha; ; ) is a Māori term for New Zealanders primarily of European descent. Pākehā is not a legal concept and has no definition under New Zealand law. The term can apply to fair-skinned persons, or to any non-Māori New Ze ...

, 9.8%

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

, 0.5% Pacific peoples, 1.8%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, and 1.8% other ethnicities. People may identify with more than one ethnicity. The percentage of people born overseas was 18.0, compared with 27.1% nationally. Although some people chose not to answer the census's question about religious affiliation, 53.4% had no religion, 37.7% were

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

, 0.4% had Māori religious beliefs, 0.2% were

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

, 0.4% were

Buddhist Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and 1.6% had other religions. Of those at least 15 years old, 294 (21.2%) people had a bachelor's or higher degree, and 198 (14.3%) people had no formal qualifications. The median income was $39,600, compared with $31,800 nationally. 351 people (25.3%) earned over $70,000 compared to 17.2% nationally. The employment status of those at least 15 was that 678 (48.8%) people were employed full-time, 237 (17.1%) were part-time, and 27 (1.9%) were unemployed.

Activities

It has access to lakeside activities and is more protected from the prevailing wind than the eastern lake shore. The nearest major retail centre is

and many would regard it as now a suburb of this service and resort town. From 31 October 2022 it had buses to Taupō on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Acacia Bay is the location of the Tauhara Centre Trust, a retreat centre and pioneering centre in the revival of organic and biodynamic horticulture, which was moved to the site in 1977, and has proved historically to be attractive to overseas visitors. The trust has esoteric roots, having been founded in 1938 by amongst others, the widow of Dr.

Robert Felkin Dr Robert William Felkin FRSE LRCSE LRCP (13 March 1853 – 28 December 1926) was a medical missionary and explorer, a ceremonial magician and member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a prolific author on Uganda and Central Africa, and e ...

, a noted member of the

Stella Matutina The Stella Matutina (Morning Star) was an initiatory magical order dedicated to the dissemination of the traditional occult teachings of the earlier Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Originally, the outer order of the Stella Matutina was known a ...

Order and

Order of the Golden Dawn The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn ( la, Ordo Hermeticus Aurorae Aureae), more commonly the Golden Dawn (), was a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult Hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and early 20th cen ...

.nzoccult

Geology

The bay is on the western shores of the present outlet to

and has given its name to the 9210 BCE (11.4 ka) Acacia Bay

Taupō Volcano Lake Taupō, in the centre of New Zealand's North Island, is the caldera of the Taupō Volcano, a large rhyolitic supervolcano. This huge volcano has produced two of the world's most violent eruptions in geologically recent times. ImageSize ...

Unit D eruption as the vent was nearby to the south-east and went on to form the

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The mineral ...

Acacia Bay Dome behind the bay. This relatively small eruption produced the dome whose lava contains markers that identify some of the magma body involved as from a remelt of products from the Whakamaru Caldera eruption of 335,000 years ago. The most recent major

Hatepe eruption The Hatepe eruption, named for the Hatepe Plinian pumice tephra layer, sometimes referred to as the Taupō eruption or Horomatangi Reef Unit Y eruption, is dated to 232 CE ± 10 and was Taupō Volcano's most recent major eruption. It is thoug ...

of 1,800 years ago buried the entire area with a thick pumice-rich pyroclastic deposit which temporarily blocked the outlet to

so there is a terrace above the present lake level. Behind this is an even higher scarp/terrace at about 60 to 90m above lake level that was formed after the 26,500 years ago

Oruanui eruption The Oruanui eruption of New Zealand's Taupō Volcano (also known as the Kawakawa eruption or Kawakawa/Oruanui event) was the world's most recent Supervolcano#Known supereruptions, supereruption.} Eruption With a Volcanic Explosivity Index of 8, ...

when initially the new lake flowed out at Waihora to the west. If you come into the bay from the north on the road from Taupo the flat shoreline before you reach the bay is post eruption mobilised Hapete (Taupo) alluvium, with Hatepe (Taupo)

ignimbrite Ignimbrite is a type of volcanic rock, consisting of hardened tuff. Ignimbrites form from the deposits of pyroclastic flows, which are a hot suspension of particles and gases flowing rapidly from a volcano, driven by being denser than the surrou ...

and then Oruanui Ignimbrite covering the slope of the valley away from the lake. The northern promontory of the bay is formed from lava that erupted more than 100,000 years ago, with the township in the bay itself being built on deposits in the Huka Falls formation that also predated the Oruanui eruption. Behind the bay and above the main road is the rhyolite of the Acaia Bay Dome.

References

{{Authority control Taupō District Suburbs of Taupō Populated places in Waikato Populated places on Lake Taupō