Hallett Cove

Aussie Kestrel


Having successfully dodged most of the winter bugs in the UK, I came over to Aus to sample theirs. If only people would stay at home when they’re ill – not go to hospital to spread them around. And I can say so now, too. Anyway, I was supposed to be working the weekend, but spent it in quarantine instead. If only you could get paid for doing Sudoku and crosswords...

Anyway, Friday was strange because as well as being ill, there was a bit of phone traffic with England and a lot of waiting – until a text at 5:30 Saturday morning announcing Theo Murray Thompson was born. All 8lb12oz of him.

Feeling a bit better today (if not quite eating yet – and I was supposed to be off anyway), and slightly stir crazy, I decided not to go away as planned, but stay local. So I went to Hallett Cove which is just South of the city in the City of Holdfast Bay. (City seems to be a word for “council area”).

It’s another interesting place. Geology at work. Actually it’s Geology at play in a "teehee" sort of way. (“Let’s see what the geologists make of THIS anomaly, and how about if we don’t leave any traces of activity for 140 million years over here. That’ll confuse them. They’ll have to think of new term for it”). It’s difficult to describe, but I guess top down is best – mainly because it’ll explain the photos. Sort of like the Dorset coast but you can walk it in 2 hours, not days.

So the top is various rocks and mud caps, then where that has eroded is a bowl with pink and orange candy-striped soft sandstone cliffs and a mini “sugarloaf” that is about 10 feet tall. That slopes to the sea and a beach which is strewn with random erratic rocks that were deposited by glaciers.

The cliffs are the silt from below that (same as some of the inland mountain ranges and are a rich dark-chocolate colour, in strata like shale. On the beach are rows and rows of long, thin rock pools (no anemones or crabs sadly) in the ends of the worn away rock which looks like old wood. The stones and boulders are beautiful – browns and purples, maroon and caramel swirls. On the cliffs are glacial pavements (between the dark rock and the sands) which are polished flat and some have alluvial deposits on– and the reason that Hallett Cove is a conservation area. Just like an O-level geography lesson


As usual I walked longer than the book suggested – once again due to the wonderful signposting here which means that the signs are only visible from one direction. But it was worth it. Most of the path is boardwalk to protect the soil from (more) erosion, but over the hill you get onto path, which at one point is strewn with the tiniest pale-lilac irises. And waterfall creek for once was well named, with a cute little brook falling over foot-high waterfalls into natural pools.

It’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow so I’ll try Bel Air and see what that is like.