Ku Ring Gai Chase National Park [antikvár]

AScol/and Island Ku-ring-gai Chase is an area of sandstone gorges, drowned valleys and open heathland tops; a preserve of natural bushland and a sanctuary for wildlife situated only 20 miles from the centre of Sydney. Bordered on the north by the waters of Broken Bay, it covers an area of over 35,000 acres and has more than 70 miles of navigable foreshores. Grasstrees, casuarinas, banksias and smooth-barked angophoras cling to the precipitous rocky slopes. In the higher areas and open heathlands the wildflowers characteristic of the Hawkesbury sandstone country grow in colourful profusion: waratahs, native heaths, flannel flowers, grevilleas, boronias, christmas bells, peafloweis, native iris, and little ground orchids. The black-tailed swamp wallaby is common, and there are still isolated communities of koalas. Australia's unique platypus, once plentiful in the area, is now extremely rare, but the equally unique echidna is frequently seen. Brushtail and ring-tail possums are common; sugár gliders and the tiny, honey-eating pigmy possums alsó occur. There is a great variety of birds: honey-eaters, wrens, silvereyes and rosellas are plentiful on the hilltops and heathlands; the shy lyrebird may occasionally be seen in the moist gullies; seabirds rangé the rocky foreshores and mudflats. McCarrs Creek. near the Duckholc · A Lion Island The picturesque Hawkesbury sandstone, in somé places a thousand feet deep, was laid down as sediment in Triassic times, when the area was covered by a vast estuary. For a hundred millión years or more, these deposits accumulated and solidified; then, in the Tertiary period, the whole of the east coast was elevated and there began the slow process of erosion as the rivers found their way to the sea, in those days much further to the east. During the Ice Age, sea levels feli as the ice caps grew, and the rivers chiselled deeper and ever deeper intő the soft sandstone, forming spectacular gorges and valleys hundreds of feet deep. Then the earth warmed again. The ice melted, the oceans rose; the coastline moved westward, and the Hawkesbury and its tributaries were flooded. The rising waters isolated somé areas, forming islands: Lion Island, Scotland Island, and Barrenjoey - the last-named now once again linked to the mainland by drifting sands. Lion Island is a resting place for seabirds, including the sooty shearwater and the fairy penguin. There are marsupial mice in the honeycombed, wind-worn sandstone rocks, and occasional lizards, but little other wildlife as the area has no running water. Lion Island is a Nature Reserve, and permission must be obtained before landing lovett Bay ·