Clay Cliffs of Omarama Quailburn, South Island, New Zealand
By CrystalFairy on 10-Jan-11. Waypoint GC2M9NY

Been this way several times but never visited actual site. Decided to do it today. Glad I did. Amazing spot. Answers have been sent.Tftc

A plan was hatched quite a while ago when the Dunedin Mega was announced to come over to the South Island again.I have only been to New Zealand twice before and I loved the South Island.So a chance to come back for a Mega was a no brainer for me.Everything was booked and I flew in the Saturday before after a bit of a delay.Hopefully the weather improves as Im missing the sunshine that I had earlier on on this trip.So Day 14 of my Mega NZ starts and Im heading off to Timaru to check out that town and Im slowly heading North again.I made it up and over Lindis Pass and are now heading towards Omarama where I turned off earlier on this trip.After stopping at a cache on the main highway I noticed thesed cliffs again and as I had no time on the way down my plan was to call in this time on the way up.I worked out how to get into here and there was a few cars and campers in the carpark when I got here.I was a nice walk in and the cliffs were very impressive when you climbed the path up to them.Answers have been sent to the CO.A fav goes out to you for highlighting these great clay cliffs for use to come and see.Thanks CrystalFairy TFTEC.

Visiting the Clay Cliffs whilst completing the Alps to Ocean with Sidetracks women. Having a fabulous time . . highly recommend the "fully supported" option .Answers sent, thanks for the earthcache CrystalFairy.

We have seen the clay cliffs from a distance (from the viewing pull off areas on SH8) and have always wanted to visit but have never had the time. Today, the planets were aligned and we had the time, and the weather, to make the visit. Lots of interesting views of the cliff along the way from the parking spot to the published co-ords. I found the narrow canyon just before the published co-ords a little claustrophobic so didn't linger, nor was I comfortable with the cliffs towering above me at GZ, so took a quick photo and skedaddled, leaving StreetWalkerNZ to work on the logging requirements. Thanks for bringing me here and TFTC.

#23609. We've been meaning to get to this cache for a while, and today we were finally in the area with some time up our sleeves. An interesting area (well worth exploring). Rain threatened at times, but never came to much. Troodles sent answers on behalf of us both. TFTC.

Found with Blue Jay while travelling around New Zealand. A great country and nicer people.Answers and photos sent by Blue Jay for both of us.TFTC.Toffee Man.

Stopped at this amazing place on the way south.Thanks for the cache./herrFamaxe from Sweden

A good detour off our planned route to visit this stunning site. Hiked right up inside.

We biked out to see the Clay Cliffs and found that they are a very popular place for visiting. We got covered in dust from the vehicles going past. Thank you for the earth cache - answers sent. TFTC

We are on a trip in New Zealand. A wonderful country with a lot of (old ) caches. Amazing place. Answers send CrystalFairy, thank you for this earthcache cache, regards xizat-NL. Take care, this hobby can develop to an addiction.

Enjoyed walking here on our recent trip to NZ (late logging). This area reminds me of Utah in the USA.

**Log about this cache:**Nice cliff`s seen something like this in France.**General log:**After years of planning and the canceling of trip due to the corona crisis, the time had finally come:***"more than 5 weeks in New Zealand".***And how beautiful it was!Visited both the north and south islands, many tourist attractions have a cache nearby so I could do some as well.Lots of virtuals and earth caches too and traditionals. But also done a few multi caches here and there also even a mystery and wherigo cache.The trip to New Zealand was great and we saw a lot of nice places. The country has so many different types of landscapes. And the nice thing was that it is winter in the Netherlands but summer in New Zealand Too bad it takes so long to fly and that the flight is so expensive otherwise i can go here next year again.Now you can enjoy it, logging the caches is also part of it. I will try to email the answers for the earthcaches and virtual caches to the relevant co`s as soon as possible. But first log all caches and upload the photos .Submitted via Garmin Live Geocaching

We attempted to do this one but couldn't complete due to GPS issues such a neat spot though. Will have to come back some day! TFTC

Found this earthcache today. Answers sentLove the place!Thanks!!Greetings from the Netherlands Dank u voor de Cache - Danke fr die Dose - Thanks for the Cache - Merci pour la Cache - Dziki za kesza - Grazie por el Cache - Grazie per la cache - Tak for Cachen - Obrigado pelo Cache - Hvala za predpomnilnik - Dakujem za kesku - Dekuji za cache - Merci fir den Cache - Tack fr att Cache - nbellek iin tesekkrler - - - V mulumim pentru cache - Ksznm a gyorsttrat - Takk fyrir skyndiminni - - - whakawhetai koe mo te keteroki - - cache n tkkr edirik - dankie vir die kas - enkosi nge cache - ngiyabonga ngenqolobane - hvala na keu- ai u talpykl - paldies par keatmiu

Dieser Earth Cache konnte heute erfolgreich besucht und geloggt werden. Danke an den owner fr's herfhren und ausdenken.TFTCSchmerzbefreitAntworten sind an den owner raus

Camping at Lake Middleton for a couple days with the family (and friends). Not a lot of time for caching, just one or two where I can. Came our to the Clay Cliffs this morning for a looksee - started out quiet but then it became a constant stream of people, busy as! What a facinating spot. Thanks for bringing us here.

Today we visited the clay cliffs, very nice to see.Thanks for making this earthcacheGreetings from team Camperfietaer

Day 9: Across the Lindis PassThe route for today brought us back to close the big loop of our Southern journey by passing through Omarama and the Lindis Pass and back into Cromwell where we stayed the night. This would be my first trip across the Pass and we found many caches along the way, including the highlight of the day at the Bendigo Historic Reserve. Thanks for all of the caches along the route!(End of the cut and paste bit)Heres the specific log for the cache:Very cool place to visit despite the long detour in, and the short but somewhat steep walk along the cliffs. Todays weather were lovely and I relished seeing a somewhat massive example of badland terrain. We took the required pictures on site, but I will note that the sign with the red words is probably missing. TFTEC!

Fabulous place.... bookmarking our visit, awaiting permission to log

OMG. A friend had recommended this to us. Absolutely fabulous. Have an FP

Wat een prachtige locatie en zo bijzonder dat deze cliffs al zo oud zijn. Helaas hadden we geen bereik op deze locatie en konden daarom de vragen niet beantwoorden. Uiteraard wel fotos gemaakt. TFTC, greetings from the Netherlands.

We are a French couple travelling in NZ foe a year. We left our job in Garston to drive north to Auckland. On the way we stopped at Mount Cook and Tekapo lake. We saw on Google maps that the Clay Cliffs seems beautiful so we stopped there too. Indeed, it was impressive ! Thanks for the cache !

Sweet as !

15:00 What an awesome place! With both feet in the clay, a frozen creek, between the rocks, and wide views at the other side.
Thanks for showing! An other FP!

A great place to discover - why had we not heard of these before?
Thanks for creating an Earthcache here, CrystalFairy. We've emailed our answers to you.

# 799

Les réponses conjointes avec CrazyTraveler sont transmises et nous logons cette belle earth cache
Merci pour cette belle découverte instructive

Thank you for this discovery ! Resolved this one with ebrm (on the pic)

Very cool cache location! I was hoping there’d be a Earthcache here when we put it on our roadtrip bucket list and this one didn’t disappoint! TFTC!

Day 3on our holiday in New Zealand. We visited the spot of this Earth Cache. We made the requested photo, and added it to the log. Of course we searched for the answer,s and sent it to the CO.

Blue hearth inside!



***T4T$ - Many thanks to CrystalFairy for this Earth Cache, and showing us this unique spot. ***. ️

Found with @hartlovap

Great setting for a geocache!

Fabulous place but couldnt find the sign post

Very interesting and beautiful place. I sendGreetings from the Czech Republic and Thanks For This Cache.
Díky za keš.
18:45
Moje 4803

The clay cliffs were really cool. It was great to learn about some unique geology in the area. Greetings from Maryland!

We were making good time on our bike ride from Ohau over the A2O trail so really couldn't miss this detour. Great place, reminds me of the Pinnacles near Wellington. Very busy with plenty of tourists of all sorts visiting. (No problem at the cliffs but all the traffic made the ride a bit unpleasant. Would love to explore around here a bit more. Last cache for 2022. Thanks for the earthcache CrystalFairy.

I visited this impressive EarthCache while on vacation in New Zealand Thank you for the experience Greetings from Germany

in: favourite point

Found along our way to Wanaka. Thanks for the cache.

Oh boy it was a bumpy and dusty ride with campervan here. But definitely worth the dust collected on the bikes hanging in the back. Greetings from Finland and thanks for the EC.

FITW Albijos

On yet another work trip of Albi. We thoroughly enjoyed the day in winter wonderland.
We always wanted to come and explore Omarama cliffs and it cannot be better day than this. It was unreal and looked like a painting. What a beautiful day well spent together.
Die with memories, Not dreams.
TFTC

FITW Harisree
Went to Quailburn for work and unfortunately site covered in recent snow fall
We decided to take a detour and visit cliff . After 4x4 adventure through heavy snow track We made to cliff .
We always wanted to visit Cliff and today Cliff view is different.


Exolored really well in our on way.
Die with memories, not dreams
TFTC

Beautiful Anzac Day listening to Last Post from Ladybird Hill at dawn… then revisiting Clay Cliffs. There were hordes of people but that didn’t stop me enjoying this again . I was accompanied by Spoonz2

Well it was sunny in Omarama but clouds had gathered as I got to the cliffs along the gravel. Lots of people here. Had a good crawl up some gully's to see how far I could get before I slid down again. Was a bit slippery and fear of a downpour. Been here before but worth another trip as is a great area. Just a bit small. I recommend Bryce Canyon in the USA if you really want a good example of this kind of feature.

We started a section of the cycle trail at the end of the road near here and noticed the signs for this, so decided to come back here afterwards and check it out, and it was well worth the detour.
We had a good explore of the area, and despite the fact it was getting late in the day, there were many muggles here.
Thanks for setting this earthcache up here

Made the mistake of not downloading the cache prior to visiting - no reception. An amazing place to visit, totally recommend. Permission given to log with photo and a question or so. Thanks CF.

Was out this way last year finding some PWGT caches, but we had no time to stop. So today took a detour to come and admire the Clay Cliffs of Omarama.

We were not the only ones, as a few school groups where visiting too, a high school rowing event was on, and this seemed to tick the box for geology/geography lessons too

A little tricky around GZ as the path has been washed out, but what an amazing location.

Loved the geology of the area, thanks CrystalFairy for the hide

A friend of mine who was on holiday down here about a month ago told me about this spot.

So when nearby, I had to visit.

What a unique place!

Really cold to visit and such interesting patterns.

Thanks for the ‘how to’ on how it all happened.

Thanks for the EarthCache!

Found as part of one of the walks in the book 365 short walks in New Zealand. It was a beautiful day for a visit and we arrived at a good time. TFTC

Beautiful when no tourists around, lots washed out cause of latest rain

Found - Mrs McMike2012 & I now live full-time in our caravan & travel the country visiting places we want to visit … we are now parked up at Omarama for a couple of days, exploring in & around the local area … we went for a bit of a drive out to the Clay Cliffs and we thought it would be rude not to check out the Earthcache while there … found the required info & took the required photos with no issues, we have emailed the Cache Owner with the required info & are logging this in anticipation of receiving the ‘all clear’ … pleased to add another 'smiley face' to the tally … TFTC ... TN except photos:LN except footprints:didn’t SL ... #2,309 for us.

Hot day and a lovely wee walk with my son. First time stopping here after driving past so many times. Thanks a lot.

We loved the walk through here. It’s a great place to visit. RG took plenty of photos, some of these are attached below. Awesome weather too. TFTEC Crystal Fairy.

Day 5 of a South Island road trip for RG1972 and I and today it is Lake Tekapo to Moeraki. A bit of driving then, and we need to leave time for side trips to the Cathedral cliffs and for a bit of exploring in Oamaru.
A pretty sweet day. There are hundreds of caches on our travels today, but we just drove past the majority. Nice views of the lakes on the left, and it’s the first time either of us have driven this road before and the towns like Kurow, although we have been through the towns that bookend the road many other times, from other directions. All caches found in good nick, and if they needed a bit of extra RITR paper they got it. TFTC all COs.

Completed with Ricardinho & he has supplied our answers for this earth cache

What can I say, I LOVED the Clay Cliffs & took so many cool photos at this location. We had another stunning day & this made the magic of this location shine just a little more

Day 5 of our South Island road trip and today is Lake Tekapo to Moeraki, with mini deviations along the way to the Clay Cliffs, Elephant Rocks & Oamaru. A very cool day exploring & I've never driven the road from Omarama to Oamaru, so a win win!

TFTEC

Have visited hard a couple of times before, but this time I had the place to myself for about 10 minutes. Fabulous place to visit.

Had a great time exploring this amazing area on a lovely sunny day. Great cache thanks CrystalFairy. Favourite from us.

We enjoyed our visit to these impressive rock formations. Answers sent to CO and logging with permission. Thanks for the virtual CrystalFairy and a fave from us.

We have driven past the turnoff for these cliffs so many times and today we went in. My phone had no reception so I didn't see the requirements but we spent a long time up there exploring

We have passed the Clay Cliffs area many times and this holiday we committed to exploring the area and bagging this earthcache. A very interesting and spectacular landscape that has us puzzled as to why the columns were left to form instead of the escarpment just eroding away as an uneven slope.
TFTC
Answers send via message.

Great place to visit. It's not until you get up close that you realise how spectacular it is.

Awesome stop off for a visit. Tftc.

Awesome place to spend a bit of time exploring our own country. Busy here on a sunny Sunday morning.

Wow i hadn't the cliffs to ne so spectacular. I spent ages looking around. Answers sent to CO. Thanjs for bringing me here CrystalFairy

#10133

I enjoyed exploring the area here with injeanious and some friends. The clay cliffs were great and the area was very busy over Labour weekend. Thanks for bringing us here!

Really impressed by this geological place. Interesting to read about and even more interesting to see in real life.
Took a long walk as high as possible but without climbing the stones.

Not so easy questions, answers sent to CO. FP for the whole view.

Thanks for the cache!

Greetings from Sweden.

Found it on our trip around the southern island of new zealand.
TFTC

What a very very nice and interesting place.
Thank you very much.

We visit this earthcache during our holidays!
Thanks for showing this bizarre stone formation!

Best regards bhudi from Germany

Hello from Washington state. On day 23 of our 5 week road trip in NZ. Staying in Cromwell and because it was so clear we decided this was the day to drive to Tekapo and back to enjoy the views - all along the way, but especially Aorika! We have a famous mountain in Washington- Mt. Rainier- but the water here framing Mt. Cook is phenomenal! Fabulous trip! On our return trip we went off the beaten path (resistance met from my muggle hubby as he was tired of driving) to get a close up view of these cliffs- very impressive. I had seen these from the main road in the morning as we drove by but up close was even better. Thanks for another NZ earthcache.

As we are local South Cantabrians, we have been here before, years ago with our children, pre geocaching. In November 2019 we came here and had a wonderful afternoon followed by a trip to the Quailburn Woolshed. I was sure there was an earthcache but could not find it on my cell phone and my GPS had run out of charge (don't you love that). As it turned out I hadn't accounted for how far down the road we had come and only found the earthcache after we got back to Omarama. I could have kicked myself.

But we are back in Omarama for another week at a timeshare so thought we would take another trip up to the Clay Cliffs to get the cache. It would be a pity not to get a cache on this cool date 20/02/2020. We answered all the questions. It is such an amazing place. I love the way the face of the sandstone has tiny patterns which look like worm tracks. I would love to know what causes that. Stunning place! Thanks CrystalFairy and another favourite for this exceptional place.

On the drive from Queenstown to Twizel we marveled at the Clay Cliffs first from a distance and then from close up. It's nice that there is also an Earthcache here and we were able to connect the sightseeing with the cache.

Found during our extand stay in the nearberhoud because our camper broke down and we got a tempory one.

TFTC and letting us see a nice place.

Really nice place and great spots. Thanks for showing! Tftc

Out and about today doing the tourist thing and stumbled upon this cache. It was a grwat experience being up here to see this sight close up and to learn what the causes were. WP sign is missing to gather some of the info... TFTEC

Waiting for confirmation from CO

2852 2019-12-15 at 17:16

Logovano z terenu / Logged in the terrain
Log bude doplnen / Logg will be edited

TFTC

Found as a part of a previous group TanjackMüley, aka WanderingSparrow. Now I'm continuing on my own. TFTC

Drove past here on our way to Mt cook and promised we would have a better look on our return. The gravel road was long and rough especially with our camper that isn't made for the terrain. When we arrived at the carpark the rain started to pour so we decided to wait it out and after 15minutes it almost cleared completely. We walked to the cliffs in no time at all but there was builders around developing the area with no signs available, so it was difficult to get all the information needed. When we arrived at the gz the rain began to pour again and the clay became very slippery, it became fairly dangerous in some places and other tourists were having real trouble walking to a higher point for photos and staying on there feet. We quickly took a couple snaps and got the information and retreated dampened back to the car. The cliffs were very impressive although there wasn't much information about the cliffs anywhere of how they were formed. On the way back we could clearly see them from the highway and that was an impressive view also. Thanks for placing the earth cache!

Great view

Amazing cliffs, thanks for this
Greetings from Canada

Wow, thanks for showing. Geocaching took us again to a lovely spot we would not have seen without. TFTC

Loved the area and the walk. We have sent our answers to the CO. Here is a picture of Mrs. Critter at the site. TFTC.

Vacations 2019 - Road trip trough New Zealand
With Geoesposa, this was my 50th anniversary. 16 days, 4200Kms and a few hundreds smilles after, i was sure i saw nothing....

I liked everything, the friendly and civilized people, the way the country works, the roads and especially the natural beauty of New Zealand.
I fell in love....
I decided to go back in 5 years, I easily see myself living my last days somewhere lost in any stunning scenery of this wonderful country.

With the itinerary studied at home, the caches were the ones that were in the chosen places, and a few used to stretch the legs. It was decidedly not the most important on this trip. Of all the visited, only half a dozen did not appear, all being in good health except two or three.

I will use this generic log, not for disrespect of the owners, but due to the amount of caches visited. Here the majority of caches serve to show something beautiful (as it should be), not giving importance to the container.

My thanks to all the ownwers who, allied to the natural beauty of the country, have made this vacation unforgettable.

Nuno Salvador
aka ToKayx (Portugal) (translated by Google)

I definitely enjoyed this sidetrack I would not have done without looking for a cache. It really was worth every extra Kilometer driven.
The walk is great, the view fantastic and I enjoyed the questions as I had really difficulties to solve them but it was fun. Thank you so much for taking me there. Cheers.

Travel in south and be thete. It is amazing!Thank you for this spot.

Greetings Die_Asseln

Staying one night in Omarama, it is just a few minutes to do the short hike to these nice cliffs.
Great views to These amazing formations.
The sign asked asked for answer no. 1 isn't there anymore.
TFTC and greetings from Austria

We stay today in Omarama so we had to visit this scenic place.
Really amazing this rock formations and we enjoyed the hike very much.
TFTC and greetings from Austria

Today, D4nielB and me drove from Twizel to Dunedin and of course looked for some caches on our way.

Our first stop was the Clay Cliffs of Omarama - a really great place. Amazing.
D4nielB already sent our answers to the owner.

Thanks for showing us this place and greetings from Hamburg, Germany.
Juliane

Today it's time for Jul1ane and me to take the trip from Twizel to Dunedin. On the route we stopped and quite a few interesting sites and at some geocaches.

Our first stop were these clay cliffs. A fantastic place, they remind us a little bit of the Hoodoos in Bryce Canyon in southwest USA.

Day 6 in Newzealand. Today we drove from Cromwell to Lindis Pass.
A very beautiful Country with lovely places. We were able to find nice Caches and See Lots of interesting places.
Thank you for showing us this place.
Tftc

Heutige Etappe mit Heckenstürmer durch Neuseeland führte uns von Cromwell zum Lindis Pass mit einer genialverrückten Unterkunft

The cliffs are stunning really unusual. With the heat of the sun it felt like we were In somewhere like arizona! !!

On our New Zealand tour we visited the Clay Cliffs of Omarama.
What a wonderfull walk in this area.
Thanks for this cache.

We are on our summer holiday driving around the South Island with no real idea of where we will end up each day. We are often drawn to an area that has the potential to give us a few geocaching smilies and somewhere we have not spent time exploring before. In some cases we are revisiting placed that we have been before but liked so much we are going there again.
This is our second time to visit the cliffs, and they are just as magnificent as they were the first time we were here.
The required information was sent to the CO and we are logging with permission from the CO.

Thanks for placing this cache and thank you for the smiley

In Foren gab es positives sowie negatives Feedback. Da es klee_bär ebenfalls gut gefallen hat, haben wir den KLEINEN Umweg auf den Weg nach Twizel eingelegt. Unser Resümee: eindrucksvoll und lohnenswert. T4TC from Germany

What an amazing place! Having not checked out the requirements of this Earthcache before driving there, I can’t claim a find. But I have to say, this place is like nowhere else on Earth that I have seen before. Thanks for the cache - maybe I will return another day, despite the rocky road to get there!

I am on a road trip around the lower South Island with my family, in 2 campervans and a rental car, 6 adults and 5 kids, from Wellington and Hamburg, enjoying the scenery and the time we have to explore our lovely country.

#775. Even though I didn’t fulfil the requirements of this cache, thank you CO for allowing me to log as a find. Here is my wife, cacher GB Leader near GZ.

Called into the cliffs while heading south on a pre Christmas road trip with pdaddy94 and the kids .
I have been passed the road end countless times and even have a cache at the corner .
So finally made the extra effort to explore the cliffs and well worth it .tftc

While mørketid (the polar night) is upon us back home, I decided to be brave and fly south to find summer.
Today, I'm going to Lake Tekapo with good hope for nice night skies. Since I'm in New Zealand, I really had no luck, so frustrating for a passionate about astronomy like me! But Tekapo has a reputation and an observatory, so I have good hope. But as usual, on the way few caches for whenever I feel like stopping
I have to admit, I was a bit puzzled when I saw the sign on the road... What the heck is a clay cliff... Well the best way to know is still to go and check, and as expected, there is also an Earthcache there, so one more opportunity to add a smiley on my New Zealand map .
Clearly, I have no regrets! Those cliffs are properly breath taking, the water did a magnificent carving work in the area and sculpted beautiful columns !
So I'm really happy to have taken this little detour on the way

Hilsen from a Norwegian French
TFTC
#1206

The clay cliffs are one of the most stunning formations we visited in nz! Thanks for showing us this location. We were unsure about the road conditions at first, but managed without problems. Thanks for this cache!
Found it with GolmarKlonk.

I saw this earthcache on the map, but we were not sure if we could reach gz with our campervan due to the description of the road. But at the end it was duable and with best weather we enjoyed this really beautiful place. Thanks for this nice earthcache! Greetings from Germany, GolmarKlonk

Společně s Azulkou a Hloustem.
Díky , zdravíme z Čech

Together with Azulka and Hloust.
Thanks, we greet from the Czechia

The second night in New Zealand we slept at the Omara camp in a beautiful hut. In the evening, when we planned what we will see tomorrow, we encountered this Earth cache and found a couple of notes on the cliff in the guide. The choice was clear and we set out here in the morning. I do not know who was going to climb wherever it goes, but it was not an easy way. Mainly down. But we are brave and we've mastered everything and enjoyed the beauty of this place. Thank you for the Earth cache and send greetings from the Czech Republic. Azulka, Hlouzt, Jonas_999, and Standarenice on the way around the world.