Daily Photo – Basalt Columns at Blackhead Beach

The earliest recorded European appreciation of Blackhead comes not from a surveyor, but from an enthusiastic fellow with a walking stick – Peter Thomson. This mid-19th-century rambler, writing under the pseudonym “Pakeha,” contributed a regular column to the Otago Witness in the 1860s, chronicling his adventures under the banner Rambles Round Dunedin.

On one such outing, he turned his gaze to the spectacular basalt columns, now sometimes called the “Roman Baths”, at what he referred to as the “Green Island Peninsula.” He didn’t merely note the geology; he positively gushed, offering a truly world-class comparison:

“The base of the hill is composed of a magnificent range of basaltic columns… quite as complete as those of Fingal’s Cave at Staffa, or the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland.”

Thomson’s exuberant praise, a fine example of early local boosterism, helped establish Blackhead as a bona fide scenic attraction among settlers by the late 1860s.