[3] 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 Taupō and many would regard it as now a suburb of this service and resort town.

[6] The bay is on the western shores of the present outlet to Lake Taupō and has given its name to the relatively small 9210 BCE (11.4 ka) Acacia Bay Taupō Volcano Unit D eruption as the vent was nearby to the south-east.

[8] Its lava contains geochemical 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.

[7] The most recent major Hatepe eruption of 1,800 years ago buried the entire area with a thick pumice-rich pyroclastic deposit which temporarily blocked the outlet to Lake Taupō, so that there is a terrace 34 m (112 ft) above the present lake level.