01-12-2020: Bouddi Coastal Walk

Bouddi National Park is near Lou’s house (he lives in Bensville). It covers nearly 4,000 acres and fortunately has not suffered forest fires this year. In researching things to do around the Central Coast region I read a brochure on the Coastal Walk through the Bouddi National Park. It is a little more than 8 kilometers long from Putty Beach to MacMasters Beach and the photos I saw were of fabulous views of the coasts. Much of the park is a temperate rainforest and the trees and shrubs are very interesting. The Coastal Walk is often along the oceanfront, but does go through the bush, as the Aussie’s say.

We started our walk from Putty Beach and soon were climbing steps up the hill.

Very soon after getting up to the cliff plateau we began seeing the most fascinating and interesting sandstone formations. The first encounter was with laterite. Typical laterite is porous and clay-like and very red due to the iron content. It is derived from a wide variety of rocks weathering under strongly oxidizing and leaching conditions. Although laterite also can look like porous soil, what we saw really did look like hardened clay. The white appearance looked as though someone had spilled a big can of white paint. It was so fascinating.

Next we discovered really cool patterns called Liesgang rings, which are colored bands observed in sedimentary rock that typically cut-across the rock bed. The rock exhibit bands of minerals that are arranged in a regular repeating, concentric ring-like pattern. In addition to the Liesgang rings, there were mounds of bleached sandstone that looked like honeycombs. It was so interesting and we spent a lot of time just wandering around the area staring at the rings and patterns.

A little further along the boardwalk we came to an area where there was a formation called tessellated pavement. The sandstone that is buried deep within the earth’s crust is affected by weathering and erosion. Layers are removed over time and the pressure on the rocks is released. This causes the sandstone to expand resulting in cracking of the surface. The tessellated pavement looks like squares cut into the rock with round centers. I read a description by someone that said it looks like a rack of pies that have collapsed.

There was just so much to take in. Looking up and down the coast it appeared kind of foggy, but this was really smoke haze from the fires. Although there are no fires in the immediate area, the smoke haze has been a big problem all around the Sydney area and further south of Sydney. Luckily, it hasn’t been so bad to affect us, although there are areas where the smoke haze is causing health problems.

The Coastal Walk turns into the bush, which is the local vernacular for undeveloped areas synonymous to backwoods. The hills are covered in many species of trees, especially gum trees (eucalyptus) and very pre-historic-looking ferns and small palms. The hills come right down to the coastline so we were mostly climbing up or going down. And every so often we got a great glimpse of the ocean.

We had planned for Lou to meet us at either of 2 places, as he did not hike with us due to a gimpy knee. Our planning needed to be changed because Christine and I spent so much time looking at the sandstone formation and then found the up and down through the bush tiring, that we were not as far along the walk as we had planned. I was able to text Lou to let him know to meet us at a different place. We took a spur trail to the agreed new meeting spot. What we experienced was essentially a straight up the hill trail which really tuckered us out. We were huffing and puffing (me more than Christine) as we got to the top of the hill where Banjo and Lou greeted us.

The part of the Bouddi Coastal Walk that we completed was truly worth it. We hope to hike other sections over the next few weeks. It was so interesting and beautiful. Also, maybe the smoke haze will clear and the vistas will be even more beautiful. After our hike Lou treated us to lunch at a lovely seaside cafe at MacMasters beach. What a great day we had!