Separation Point / Te Matau

Separation Point / Te Matau is the rocky northern tip of Abel Tasman National Park, a steep-sided cape between Golden Bay and Tasman Bay. From the Coast Track lookout, you look down toward an offshore rock outcrop where fur seals and seabirds gather. This is a long walk for a wild headland and a change of scale from the park’s easier beach stops.

Reach the point on foot from the Abel Tasman Coast Track, approaching from Wainui Bay or Tōtaranui. The track is well marked, but some sections are steep, rough and muddy. Water taxis run only as far north as Tōtaranui, so they don’t drop you at the point. If you’re linking it into a longer Coast Track walk, check the current DOC map and tide tables; the through-route includes a compulsory tidal crossing.

The approach is part of the payoff: coastal forest, sandy bays and exposed headlands lead into the park’s northern end. Treat it as a deliberate outing rather than a quick spur, since route length and return time depend on where you start and whether you loop.

A white marine beacon marks the rocky point. The cape divides the waters of Golden Bay and Tasman Bay, and the view takes in steep coastal slopes and scattered offshore rocks. For a photo, use the beacon as a foreground landmark with open sea behind it; from the track, the rocky outcrop below is the defining view.

New Zealand fur seals and seabirds gather on the rocks below the track. Sightings vary, but this is a good place to scan the shoreline from above. Keep your distance and don’t feed wildlife.

The coast here is part of the Separation Point Granite landscape. The hard granite shapes the rocky shore, and tiny bryozoans build coral-like colonies on reefs around the point. They’re animals, not plants, and their colonies add a different kind of detail to a place that first reads as cliffs, sea and seals.

French explorer Jules Dumont d’Urville rounded and named Separation Point on 14 January 1827 aboard the Astrolabe. The expedition then anchored in what is now Astrolabe Roadstead. The name marks a moment in the park’s early European charting, while Te Matau keeps the point’s Māori name beside it.