Taieri Recreational Tramping Club

The  Sandfly Bay-Sandymount area is remarkable for its native fauna and flora and its dramatic coastal scenery. Among the many outstanding natural features are the Sandfly Bay yellow-eyed penguin colony and the 220m-high cliffs of Lover’s Leap, a collapsed sea chasm at Sandymount. The complex, covering about 500 ha is protected for its wildlife and recreational values. The Sandfly Bay wildlife refuge, created in 1908 is the oldest on Otago Peninsula. Its soaring dunes, dark cliffs, heavy surf and rocky islets give it a character rather different from Sandymount’s chasms, low forest and grasslands. Sandymount summit (320m) is the third highest point on the peninsula.

Sandfly Bay, named not for the insect but for the sand blown up by the wind in this area, has some of New Zealand’s tallest  sand dunes which rise for some 100 metres above the beach. With the clearance of coastal forest, windblown sand has migrated inland to create impressive dunes reaching to the summit of Sandymount.

Otago Peninsula was created by a volcano that was active 10-13MYA. Over time, the volcanic peaks were worn down by erosion and Otago Harbour formed along a heavily eroded line of weakness or faulting in the earth’s crust. The exposed rocks in this area are all volcanic, with basalt columns prominently exposed at Lover’s Leap. Both Lover’s Leap and The Chasm were formed when soft lower layers of volcanic rock were eroded by the sea.

Three midden sites, representing early Maori encampments or kaika nohoaka, have been recorded around Sandymount (pikiwhara). There was a Maori settlement here in 1844.

Gleaned from DoC hard copy sheets