Up the Valley - Clay Cliffs
The Clay Cliffs are a natural geological formation created more than 5 million years ago and provide unique photo opportunities of cliffs that are impressively sculpted into crazy bluffs, pinnacles and deep ravines.
The Clay Cliffs are made of layers of gravel and silt, deposited by rivers flowing from glaciers. The Ostler Fault which runs through the region and the cliffs are the result of natural erosion created by this fault.
There are also similar cliffs found further down the Waitaki Valley by Duntroon called Earthquakes.
Late Miocene tectonic uplift of Central Otago ranges and reworking of quartzose cover sediments gave rise to the coarsening-upward, sandstone and conglomerate dominated Hawkdun Group, which is widespread in the Maniololo basin and in the Waitaki valley from Clay Cliffs to Kurow.
The name Hawkdun Group was proposed for the late Miocene-Pliocene succession of tectonically generated sediments in the Maniototo, Ida, and Manuherikia Basins, and the name Maniototo Conglomerate was proposed to replace Maori Bottom. The Hawkdun Group in Central Otago can be subdivided into two mappable units. The basal Wedderburn Formation consists predominantly of late Miocene quartzose fluvial strata recycled largely from cover strata of the St Bathans, Kakanui, and Hawkdun Ranges. Wedderburn Formation contains an upwardly increasing component of first-cycle lithic detritus derived from these ranges, and grades up into late Miocene-Pliocene Maniototo Conglomerate, consisting of thick beds of greywacke-dominated conglomerate and interbedded loess horizons. In previous usage, Wedderburn Formation included some strata which more appropriately belong with the underlying Manuherikia Group.
The basal Wedderburn Formation is quartz-lithic sandstone and conglomarate. Overlying Maniotolo Conglomerate is composed of well rounded, imbricated clasts of Rakaia terrane sandstone with some schist. Clasts and matrix are generally weathered to a rusty red-brown colour, although in reducing environments the conglomerate may be bluegrey.
In places the Hawkdun Group is imerfingered with upper pans of the generally underlying Manuherikia Group. Both confonnable and unconfonnable contacts are known, with the latter tending to be near tectonically deformed range fronts, where Hawkdun Group sediments characteristically dip steeply.
To get to the Clay Cliffs, head north out of Omarama then about 700m past the Ahuriri Bridge turn onto Quailburn Rd off SH8 and then onto unsealed Henburn Road
The cliffs are on private land, there is an honesty box at the gate where you can pay an entry fee of $5 per car
If there has been a lot a rain it can be considered a difficult walk but if dry it is quite an easy walk