You may start anywhere along Sandymount or Ridge Roads, depending on whether you prefer a strenuous or gentle end to your walk! There are car parks at the end of each road. If you leave the car at the end of Sandymount Road, all the descent comes first - down the road to Ridge Road. If you leave the car at the end of Ridge Road, all the descent comes last.

At the end of Ridge Road, leave the car in the designated space, 200 m before the gate. Take care not to block the farmer's access. Follow the signs to Sandfly Bay. Here the track is marked with poles with yellow painted tops. The path wanders through the fields down towards the top of the dunes. Eventually a carved arrow shows the descent to the valley of Morris Creek and the path follows the stream to the beach.

When you reach the sea, turn left (east) along the beach between the sea and the impressive dune faces. At high tide take care not to get washed away by the waves! In five minutes you will reach the Department of Conservation hide at the eastern end of Sandfly Bay. Sealions sometimes rest on the shore below the hide and in the evening yellow-eyed penguins come ashore here. Sealions have good colouring for camouflage on a rocky coast. If the rocks along the shore move, they're probably sealions.

The track to Sandymount heads uphill through the dunes immediately behind the hide. The track is now marked with white plastic road markers, with a red reflector on one side and yellow reflector on the other. Going uphill the red reflectors are towards you. However, the markers are sometimes buried, often difficult to see and you should not be concerned if you don't see them for a while.

This is the most difficult stretch for navigation. For the first twenty minutes you ascend the vegetated dunes. Don't cross the fenceline that was just east of the hide. Initially, if you find yourself on unvegetated dunes, you're too far west. Eventually the track markers disappear as you are forced out onto the unvegetated dunes. Keep ascending. Look back at the marvellous views. When you rise up onto a small crest in the sand dune after another ten minutes, start keeping a sharp eye out for a marker on your right, at the bottom of a vegetated sand gully.

Clamber up the narrow sand gully, which leads to a track that winds up the side of the ridge southwest of Sandymount peak. This track is indistinct from below, but clearly marked with white plastic markers and the path is quite obvious at close quarters. Keep looking back - the views along the coast get better and better as you ascend through the scrub to the ridge.

After twenty minutes of steep, shaggy climbing the track levels out in a paddock of tussock and flax. The markers become less obvious, but the path itself is clear. Follow it along the west side of the ridge for twenty minutes, until you reach a fence in front of you. On the left is the head of one of the unvegetated sand gullies. In fact, you could ascend this way from the beach if you didn't mind climbing up soft sand.

At the fence, turn right (east) to walk along the fence until you meet a signpost that indicates the way to "Lovers Leap". Cross the fence here and continue the short distance uphill to the col. The path now descends through an ethereal grove of low-growing trees until you begin to get views along the coast again. The remnants of a valley hang here on the edge of the sea - the southern side of the valley has been eroded away to form sheer cliffs. The 'hanging valley' still provides excellent pasture for sheep that don't suffer vertigo.

You will have noticed the platform structure in the paddock. Step up and have a look - this is Lovers Leap. Waves crash through this vertiginous cleft on stormy days and the natural bridge looks as though it may collapse at any moment. However, it probably has a few hundred years of life in it yet.

On the left of the rift are impressive vertical basalt columns - formed as a thin layer of lava from the first of three eruptive phases of the Portobello volcano slowly cooled millions of years ago. The weakness in the rock that is exploited by the sea to erode Lovers Leap is a tinguaite-phonolite - named because some exposures make a musical sound when struck. Don't try it here! Tinguaite-phonolites are magma intrusions from the volcano into the surrounding rock.

The marker posts have turned back to poles with yellow tops again. Follow them around the hillside, which gradually reveals the splendid vista over Cape Saunders and Allans Beach to the north. A short side track through the paddocks leads to a second platform - this time situated on the edge of The Chasm - another vertical drop to a hard bottom.

Return to the main path and follow it round the east side of Sandymount to the stockyards and shearing shed. The views over Allans Beach and Hoopers Inlet get better and better until they are lost as you gently descend through a dense plantation of macrocarpa. If you left your car at the end of Sandymount Road, you will have completed your walk. If not, carry on down the gravel road.

Not far from the end of the road you will notice sand underfoot. Strong winds sweep sand from Sandfly Bay right up to this ridge. The sand crosses the ridge and descends to Allans Beach, following an unusual pathway for the transfer of sand from beach to beach.

The gravel road descends gently at first past several derelict farm buildings on the left and magnificent views of Hoopers Inlet and the Otago Harbour on the right. Keep descending to the junction with Hoopers Inlet Road (on the right) in half an hour, then ascend a short distance to turn left into Ridge Road. Another twenty minutes walking through the pleasant, ever-changing rural vistas will see you back at the car.