Te Matuku Bay

Te Matuku Bay is the most eastern of the deep harbours along the southern coast of Waiheke. It is the site of the Te Matuku Marine Reserve, a protected 690ha zone from the shores of the bay out into the Waiheke Channel.

History
Te Matuku Bay was important to Maori both as a rich source of food and a place to land waka, servicing nearby settlements, including the hilltop kainga at Maunganui, Waiheke's highest point. It was also the site of the first European settlement on Waiheke. Visible evidence of the early Pakeha families on the island can be found at the Waiheke Pioneer Cemetery, a graveyard to which coffins were brought by water, and at the site of the island's first school.

The marine reserve
The bay is considered special as one of the few examples in northern New Zealand of an uninterrupted sequence of pristine ecosystems from podocarp forest, through the coastal evironment to the estuarine communties of life and out into the deeper water of the Tamaki Strait.

After many years of planning the Te Matuku Marine Reserve was created in August 2005, protecting the bay and part of the Waiheke Channel, out beyond Passage Rock.