Tasman Bay (; officially Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere), originally known in English as Blind Bay, is a large V-shaped bay at the north end of

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. Located in the centre of the island's northern coast, it stretches along of coastline and is across at its widest point. It is an arm of the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who in 1642 wa ...

, lying on the western approach to

Cook Strait Cook Strait () is a strait that separates the North Island, North and South Islands of New Zealand. The strait connects the Tasman Sea on the northwest with the South Pacific Ocean on the southeast. It is wide at its narrowest point,McLintock, ...

. At the bay's western extremity, the land around the bay is rough and densely forested. Separation Point, the westernmost point of the bay, is located in

Abel Tasman National Park Abel Tasman National Park is a national park at the north end of New Zealand's South Island. It covers of land between Golden Bay / Mohua and Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere, making it the smallest of National parks of New Zealand, New Zealand's ...

and separates Tasman Bay from its smaller neighbour, Golden Bay. To the east, the land is also steep, with the westernmost points of sea-drowned valleys of the

Marlborough Sounds The Marlborough Sounds (Māori language, te reo Māori: ''Te Tauihu-o-te-Waka'') are an extensive network of ria, sea-drowned valleys at the northern end of the South Island of New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds were created by a combination ...

. D'Urville Island sits to the northeast of Tasman Bay's easternmost point. Arrow Rock is situated off the coast of Nelson. The land between these two extremes is more gently rolling, and also includes the coastal plains around the mouth of the Waimea River at the bay's southernmost point. Other rivers entering the sea along the coast of the bay include the Riwaka, the Motueka and Maitai Rivers. The long low form of Rabbit Island is located close to the bay's south coast. Tasman Bay contains the rare rock formation known as the Boulder Bank. The fertile land around the centre of the bay's coast is extensively cultivated and known for its horticultural crops such as apples,

kiwifruit Kiwifruit (often shortened to kiwi), or Chinese gooseberry, is the edible berry (botany), berry of several species of woody vines in the genus ''Actinidia''. The most common cultivar group of kiwifruit (Actinidia chinensis var. deliciosa, ...

, olives, grapes and

hops Hops are the flowers (also called seed cones or strobiles) of the hop plant ''Humulus lupulus'', a member of the Cannabaceae family of flowering plants. They are used primarily as a bittering, flavouring, and stability agent in beer, to whic ...

. In the middle of the twentieth century the Tasman Bay area produced large crops of

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

. There is a tobacco museum in Motueka. It is also the most densely populated part of the South Island's north coast, and several towns and the city of Nelson are all located close to the shore. These towns include Riwaka, Motueka, Māpua and Richmond.

History

The location's original name, Blind Bay, was given by

Captain Cook Captain James Cook (7 November 1728 – 14 February 1779) was a British Royal Navy officer, explorer, and cartographer famous for his three voyages of exploration to the Pacific and Southern Oceans, conducted between 1768 and 1779. He complet ...

in 1770. The name of the bay was officially altered to Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere in August 2014.

References

External links

* {{Abel Tasman National Park * Abel Tasman National Park Bays of the Tasman District Landforms of the Nelson Region