Beowa National Park; old park, new name

We've very recently returned from a most pleasant five nights at a park which is rapidly becoming a favourite, though we only camped there for the first time a year ago. It's on the far south coast of New South Wales, straddling Twofold Bay and the port of Eden, with sections north and south of them. 

Bittangabee Bay, by Bittangabee Campground (our temporary home), Beowa NP.

The arrow marks the location of Beowa, very near the Victorian border
with New South Wales.

You may know it better as Ben Boyd National Park, as it was officially called from its gazettal in 1971 until September 2022, so let's get that out of the way first. Benjamin Boyd was a ruthless but apparently charismatic wheeler and dealer of the first half of the nineteenth century, a Scot who came to New South Wales in 1842 and became involved, with varying degrees of dodginess, in grazing, shipping, whaling, banking and politics. However the relevant activity in this context was his invention of the extraordinary, and deplorable, practice of 'blackbirding'. This was the effective kidnapping of South Pacific people (mostly young men) and forcing them to sign an agreement which they couldn't read to work for very little remuneration for a period of about three years. His motivation was cheap labour for his various ventures in the vicinity of what is now Beowa NP. It ultimately failed because the authorities refused to ratify the agreements and many of the unwilling workers just ran away. Many died. (Later it was revived, though not by Boyd, on a much larger scale in the Queensland sugar fields.) 

In 2020, in the context of the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement, there was increasing pressure to remove the association with such an inappropriate individual and, after extensive consultation with local Indigenous and Pacific communities, the name Beowa (meaning Orca) was settled on. 

So back to the park. Our interest is mainly in the larger southern section, know as Green Cape for a feature near the Bittangabee campground. The cape is a good place to start meeting the park if you're new to it; the road to the 19th century lighthouse gives easy access. 

Green Cape Lighthouse in early morning haze.
Built in the 1880s it still operates, though no longer burning oil!

Here are two moods of the coast looking north from the cape.

Both shots were taken in February, but twelve months apart. The rocks are some 350 million
years old, a mix of sedimentaries such as ironstone (hence the red tinge that is prevalent)
and metamporphics such as quartzites which derived from them.

Ironstone at nearby City Rock, looking south.

And here are some more coastal scenes, as that's what many people go to the park for. 

An arm of Bittangabee Bay, extending inland; walking the perimeter is very pleasant indeed.

Morning haze from Pulpit Rock, near Green Cape.

Looking south from the Disaster Bay Lookout across the bay, where in 1802 Matthew Flinders
stopped on his circumnavigation of the continent in the Investigator.  He sent a party of eight
sailors ashore to replenish the ship's water supply, but none returned, hence his name for the bay.
(Other sources simply attribute it to the many shipwrecks in the bay, but Flinders' journal is
cited as a source, though I haven't seen a copy of it.) He had already named Green Cape in 1798
on his way to sail around Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) in the Norfolk.
To the right is Lake Wonboyne and beyond is wild Nadgee Nature Reserve and ultimately Victoria.

In places the coastal heathland extends up to a kilometre inland - the peninsula that culminates in Green Cape is entirely dominated by it - though more typically it's restricted to the headlands. It's a habitat that I spend a lot of time in when I'm there. It is dominated by heaths (ie family Epacridaceae/Ericaceae, 'heath' having a double meaning here), banksias, hakeas, casuarinas, wattles, westringias, sedges etc and is often very dense. Birds and other animals abound here, but we'll get to them. Here are some scene-setters of the heathlands.

Like much of the park the heaths are recovering from the vast fires of January 2020; the
heaths respond more rapidly than do the forests.

Part of the 30km Light to Light walk along the coast from Green Cape to Boyd's Tower
at the northern end of the southern section of the park.

Looking north from the track, near Green Cape, with regenerating Saw Banksia
B. serrata in the foreground. I think we're looking at Haycock Hill, the highest point
in the park at 250 metres above sea level.

Apparently unburnt heath with red Common Heath Epacris impressa and spiky Silky Hakea
H. sericea in the foreground, and flowering Saw Banksia behind.

Looking across the heathland with prominent sedges to Disaster Bay.

Heath with Scrub, Dwarf or Swamp Sheoak Allocasuarina paludosa in the foreground.

As mentioned, both our stays there have been in summer so flowering was nowhere near its peak, but there was enough to keep us satisfied.

Hairy Fanflower Scaevola ramosissima.

Wedding Bush Ricinocarpus pinifolius. This is a male flower; they tend to open after the
female flowers to avoid self-fertilisation. Moreover while there are usually five petals, quite
a few have six, like this one. This variability is often regarded as a primitive characteristic and
most plants have flowers which do not vary in petal number.

Common Heath Epacris impressa; flowers can also be pink or white. It is the floral emblem
of Victoria but is also found from Adelaide to the Budawang Ranges in NSW, and in Tasmania.

Small Crowea C. exalata, in the family Rutaceae, like boronias, correas and citrus fruit.
Nestled in the middle, the little four-petalled white flower is Hairy Mitrewort Mitrasacme pilosa.

Saw Banksia, which if long-unburnt can grow to ten metres tall or twist into
magnificent distortions in windy situations (below).

On the headlands are often dense stands of big Bracelet or Giant Honey-myrtle, or Coastal Teatree Melaleuca armillaris. In such situations not much grows beneath them as the fallen leaves form a smothering carpet.

Coastal Teatree along the Light to Light Track.

However the only orchid we found was growing under the teatrees by the campground.

 

Blotched Hyacinth Orchid Dipodium punctatum, a leafless saprophyte (ie it invariably grows
in association with a fungus which provides it with soil nutrients). I don't regard it as
particularly common in this part of the world, where it is mostly coastal.

Coastal Teatrees can also grow in the harshest and most unlikely of situations on the rocky headlands in almost no soil and in the full blast of the salty wind.

At Pulpit Rock this hardy stand of Coastal Teatree is holding together the ground
beneath them as it erodes away around them.

This old survivor germinated among the rocks above the sea, but the constant winds
have forced it to grow flat on the ground.

Generally nature doesn't obey our rules of sharp cutoffs between habitat types, with gradual changes being the norm, but that's not always the case with the heathland-forest interface.

I found this to be especially striking when driving back from Green Cape to
Bittangabee Bay. I assume the sharp change is associated with a change of soil
type from sand to clay and gravel (though of course this raises other questions).

Silvertop Ash Eucalyptus sieberi and Red Bloodwood E. gummifera are probably the most widespread forest species in the park, but there are many others present.

Woollybutt forest Eucalyptus longifolia, Bittangabee Bay.

Wetter patches occur in sheltered situations, and the inland fringe of Bittangabee campground is dominated by a dense strip of Sweet Pittosporum P. undulatum.

And as already mentioned, the impacts of the 2020 fires are still very evident almost everywhere, and are likely to remain so for years to come.

And while I was intending to conclude with a selection of animals of the park, that would double the length of this post, which I think is already long enough for a single sitting and I will post separately on them. However I won't impose the usual three week gap between posts, and will put that one up in a fortnight. Thanks for reading and see you then. Meantime if you're in the region you just might want to pop along and enjoy Beowa for yourself!

NEXT POSTING THURSDAY 23 FEBRUARY

 

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