Saddle Hill, New Zealand

Saddle Hill is a prominent landmark overlooking the northeastern end of the Taieri Plains in Otago, New Zealand. Within the limits of Dunedin city, it is located 18 kilometres to the west of the city centre, between Mosgiel and Green Island, and is clearly visible from many of the city's southern hill suburbs. A lookout on the northern slopes of the hill commands a good view across the plains, with Lake Waihola visible 25 kilometres to the west in clear weather.

The hill has two peaks: the northern is the higher, rising to 473 metres; the southern peak - Jaffrays Hill - rises to 431 metres.

Of largely volcanic origin, the hill is part of the extinct Dunedin Volcano complex, with a base of Cretaceous breccia overlaid with Miocene igneous rocks, these in turn overlaid with Cenozoic sediments. [ Bishop, D.G. and Turnbull, I.M. (1996). "Geology of the Dunedin area." Lower Hutt: Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences. ISBN 0-478-09521-X]

The hill was - along with Cape Saunders on the Otago Peninsula - one of just two places in Otago to have been named by Captain James Cook on his 1769 voyage of discovery. Cook described the hill in his journal as "a remarkable saddle". According to pre-European Maori tradition, the hill is the remains of a taniwha called Meremere [ Dann, C. and Peat, N. (1989) "Dunedin, North and South Otago." Wellington: GP Books. p. 64. ISBN 0-477-01438-0] and the northern and southern peaks of hill were known by Maoriby the names "Makamaka" and "Pikiwara" respectively. Early settlers' maps occasionally record the hill as "Saddleback Hill". Herd, J. and Griffiths, G.J. (1980) "Discovering Dunedin." Dunedin: John McIndoe. p. 103. ISBN 0-86868-030-3]

A small coal seam on the hill was exploited by early European settlers, and was mined from as early as 1849. Jaffrays Hill (often wrongly called Jeffrey's Hill, and named for the Jaffray family who owned the land from 1849 until 1937), was extensively mined for basalt gravel until the mid 1980s. A DCC landscape architect reviewed the visual effects of quarrying in 2008 after concerns from local residents, and found the hill to be "relatively unchanged". [cite web|url=http://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/22489/saddle-hill-039relatively-unchanged039-says-dcc|title=Saddle Hill 'relatively unchanged', says DCC|last=Schofield|first=Edith|date=16 September 2008|publisher=Otago Daily Times|accessdate=2008-09-15]

References