Please don't step on the dinosaurs

The Big Ant at Poochera
Nothomyrmecia macrops Dinosaur Ant

Last week we were travelling towards Port Augusta after dark and needed to refuel so we stopped at Poochera. This Big Ant model is near the service station at Poochera but I've since read that the town has featured their ant in public art all over the place.

Years ago I had read Edward O Wilson's book about ants, called The Ants, the only professional science work to have won a Pulitzer Prize  - for general nonfiction - in 1991. In that book he tells the intriguing story about this famous ant.

The Dinosaur Ant Nothomyrmecia macrops is the world's most primitive ant and was first collected in 1931. Unfortunately the label was not very helpful so entymologists from across the world looked for the ant north of Esperence in Western Australia for 46 years. In 1977 Robert Taylor and a team of scientists was driving across Australia to look again and stopped after dusk at Poochera in South Australia. Robert was taking a nature break in the scrub and found the ant. It is now thought the EP on the label of the original specimen referred to Eyre Peninsula not Esperence. The town is now a mecca for entymologists across the world.

The ant is a beautiful golden colour and its stings are very painful for humans. Luckily only three people have been stung! The ants live in a colony underground and after dark the workers leave the nest and climb a nearby tree to look for insects. If an ant finds an insect it stings it to death and immediately takes it back underground. By dawn all the workers have returned to the nest and the entrance is obscured.

 So, if you ever visit Poochera please don't step on the dinosaurs.

Cactus Beach

Well, we didn't actually go to the famous surfing beach at Cactus Beach at Point Sinclair but we did go to Port Le Hunte which is on the eastern side of the point.

To get there we turned south off the Eyre Highway at Penong with caravan in tow. At Penong we asked a local bloke what the road was like and he said "It's corrugated mate but if you travel at 60 you'll skim over the top". So we took a chance and discovered the road was smooth all the way!

One of the famous Penong windmills (and a crane for hire).

The scenery was spectacular all the way. First the gypsum harvest fields, then a band of sand dunes on the horizon and then a lake, divided by our road, that had a faint tinge of pink but apparently can be very pink. As we got closer the lakes reflected the sand dunes and the sky and the vegetation very beautifully. We saw a number of little wading birds beside the road.

Slow Down - 40 - Slow Birds

Then we came to a sign indicating that the road ahead was very steep so we asked a local bloke who said he thought we would be OK with our caravan so we ventured forward and to our surprise found, after a gentle incline, a most delightful sheltered harbour. There is a shark net to create a safe swimming area, a jetty, a picnic shelter and a view to more sand dunes and cliffs. Our lunch break there was rather longer than we had planned. Cactus Beach will wait for another day.

Pildappa Rock

At Minnipa we turned north off the Eyre Highway and travelled about 15 km to Pildappa Rock. It's south of the Gawler Range and different altogether geologically speaking.

The wave at Pildappa Rock

The rock is an inselberg of pink granite formed about 7 km below the surface and exposed by erosion. It's most attractive feature is the wave and there are numerous gnamma rockholes on the top of the rock, many holding water when we visited. Some had vegetation and one had tadpoles.

Pildappa Rock and Gawler Range in the background.

Mosses, lichens and succulents on the rock.

Flowering vegetation in one of the rockholes (and a butterfly wing).

Tadpoles in a rockhole.

Vegetation in a rockhole

Pildappa Rock was a delightful place to visit.

Shrubs in mallee

Our lunch stop, part 2.

These are some of the plants I found. A number were unobtrusively flowering. I haven't attempted to identify them as yet.

Vegetation in a reserve on the Morgan-Burra Road.

Limestone Coast

When I was five years old my parents built a new home on the farm and they chose Mount Gambier stone blocks. The blocks are large, sawn out of a limestone quarry in Mount Gambier, South Australia. Many of the homes in the city of Mount Gambier are made of the same building material - some are left the natural creamy colour, most are rendered.

The area was covered in a warm, shallow ocean 30 million years ago and the result is a thick layer of limestone formed when the remains of tonnes of sea creatures and corals dropped to the ocean floor. It has been utilised as a building material, road surfacing material. It has eroded into beautiful coastlines, famous caves, sinkholes and lakes.

Mount Gambier Limestone (fossiliferous limestone) originated from extensive colonies of bryozoa (or lace coral) that flourished on an open-marine shelf, formed over 30 million years ago. Its composition consists of bryozoa, foraminifea and echinoid spines and plates.

My sisters, Kaye and Anne, standing next to the
house made with Mount Gambier stone.

Last week we explored several areas along the coast. There are settlements (Port MacDonnell, Nene Valley, Carpenter Rocks, Pelican Point etc) dotted along the coast and all are linear, only several blocks wide. I'm not sure of the history but I'm guessing all started life as fishing shacks but the majority of the homes there now are very stylish and expensive-looking. Freshwater lobsters and fishing, diving and snorkelling are the drawcards. Apparently the fish and lobsters are in plentiful supply because of an annual event called the Bonney Upwelling which I had never heard of. Cool, nutrient-rich water surfaces along the Limestone Coast.

The Continental Shelf, which acts like a fish highway as it runs in an east/west direction off Portland and Port MacDonnell; and, the cold-flowing Bonney upwelling that pushes along the ocean floor before coming to the surface on the Shelf line. It is here that the all-important krill and other microorganisms gather. This starts an unbelievable food chain sustaining the smallest creature up to the biggest mammal on the planet. [Fishing Monthly]

We should have allowed more time because there is a lot to see and do. We only scratched the surface. It was extremely windy when we were there and I think that's normal. Shipwrecks were normal as well. The coast was treacherous. I guess it still is.

Blackfellows Caves

Blackfellows Caves

Cape Northumberland

Cape Banks

Carpenter Rocks

Cape Banks lighthouse

Nene Valley

More volcanics

I seem to be on theme here with all things volcanic. So to continue...

Last week we explored the Limestone Coast of South Australia, the area south of Mount Gambier. I'll write more about the coast in the next blog but in the meantime it's hard to ignore the area's volcanic history because the two main mountains stand out from the plain. Mt Gambier and Mount Schank are the youngest volcanoes in Australia and are defined as dormant rather than extinct. They, and other volcanoes in the area, would have been quite a sight when active and there are local Aboriginal stories about the eruptions (thought to be about 5000 years ago).

Mount Gambier (left) and Mount Schank
as seen from Cape Northumberland near Port MacDonnell.

In 1800 Lieutenant James Grant, on board the Lady Nelson, thought he spotted four islands but as the ship moved closer the islands evolved into two capes he named Northumberland and Banks and two mountains he named Gambier and Schank.

Mount Schank as seen from Mount Gambier

Mount Schank

Blue Lake, Mount Gambier

The Blue Lake holds water because the crater is below the water table whereas the craters on Mount Schank is above the water table and dry. Scientists have worked out why the water in the Blue Lake turns to a brilliant turquoise blue early in summer each year and if you're interested I suggest you follow this link. 

Both mountains are maars, the result of the rising magma hitting shallow groundwater. Violent and spectacular. If another eruption were to occur in the area in the future it would cause widespread damage up to 100 km from the site.