Tōtaranui

Tōtaranui is a 1 km long beach and the site of a large campsite in the Tasman Region of New Zealand administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC).

Tōtaranui is noted for the golden colour of its sand, more intense than other beaches in the Park, the result of a high content of orthoclase minerals in the eroded granite sands of the vicinity.

The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage gives a translation of "many tōtara trees" for Tōtaranui.

[1] The Ngāti Tūmatakōkiri iwi, having been forced out of Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui by Ngāti Kurī, settled north of the sounds along the coast and may have brought the name Tōtaranui with them.

Farming ceased after the foundation of the Abel Tasman National Park in 1942 and forest has been allowed to naturally regenerate through mānuka and kānuka to its original mix of southern beech and lowland podocarp.