About a kilometre inland from the beach is a substantial area of protected forest, the original beech wood which would have covered this whole area. It is not clear whether this area was never logged or whether this is re-growth.
Logging was intensive, bush being cleared for farming and fortunes made out of it. At its height there were 37 timber mills in the area between Dunedin and Invercargill (a strip about 30km wide by 150km long). The biggest one, just south of Owaka, worked at full strength for 90 years, before the wood was exhausted.
In this lovely remnant, heavily fenced and protected, there are many tree ferns, pushing proudly above the other trees to reach for the sky.