Sunday 25 August 2013

Hallett Cove Conservation Park



Today Jordy and I ventured too Hallett Cove Conservation park to walk along the glacial formations which form the cliff faces and rocky beaches along this part of the coast. I have often in the past walked from Seacliff to Marino and just to the outskirts of the park but never across the boardwalk.  If only I had known that just a few more kilometers would have covered the walk we did today.
The day warmed nicely and was a welcome change after the week of constant rain.


The birds appear to enjoy the sunshine as well sunning themselves on the rocks below


One of the features of the park which has become more obvious to visitors now that an extensive boardwalk has been built is the Sugarloaf formation from eroded sediment and clay. It is named after its resemblance to hard refined sugar and has been shaped by erosion over the last few thousand years.
The regions of Southern Australia were covered  by glacial caps 280 million years ago and melted around 270 million years ago. Clay soils and rock sediment were deposited into glacial lakes with melting of the caps. The waters were relatively calm and are indicated by the layering of the red and boulders,  and white clay The thin brown cap is the youngest layer formed when brown alluvial clay was washed down by a river two million years ago.





The erosion by water and wind is quite pronounced when viewed up close


Coastal daisies Weeds really, but we used to make daisy chains out of them as kids


A Butterfly which we thought originally was happily fluttering in the sun but was really trapped in a spider's web and was further entangling its wing in the fine thread of the web 

And something a little cute -  a shadow cast by the last rays of the sun through the tall cypress pine trees along the drive way ... looks like a golden labrador to me.


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