Saturday 28-05-2020

2022DepotBeach
Saturday 28 May, 2022 It's Saturday morning and we decide to have breakfast in a little cafe in Mogo. Jenni had stopped here yesterday to buy a coffee and was impressed, especially as the owners were named Kidd (which was her maiden name). Saturday 28 May, 2022 Jenni takes pictures of flowers. Lots of flowers. Saturday 28 May, 2022 She also takes "arty" pictures. Saturday 28 May, 2022
Saturday 28 May, 2022 Today's adventure takes us to Bingie Bingie Point a little south of Moruya. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingi Bingi We park the car on solid ground and enter the Eurobodalla National Park where a large Information Board greets us. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingi Bingi From the Information Board: Bingi Bingi is well known for its unusual rocks. Two different types of volcanic rocks were placed as "magma' 10km below the surface 380 million years ago. The magmas did not mix well, showing up now as bits of dark rock included in the lighter surface. A prominent 4m wide pink aplite band near the end of the point would have been injected through wide cracks. 30 million years ago, basaltic magma, possibly from Gulaga, forced itself into the cracks in the rocks to form black dykes. Uplift and erosion has produced the rocks we see todav. Of interest: "Gulaga was once an active volcano, with the first of many eruptions occurring about 94 million years ago. Back then it would have been nearly 2,000m higher than its current 797 m. What remains today is the inner core of the original volcano. It has been dormant since end of the Cretaceous 65 million years ago." Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie From the Pamphlet: BINGIE BINGIE POINT: Cool magma Bingie Bingie Point is a site of intense interest to geologists because of the prolific and spectacular display of intrusive igneous rocks on the northern side of the point, at the north end of Bingie Beach.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie It is where a complex association of two igneous rock types exist, granite and gabbroic diorite. Intrusive rock bodies are masses of magma which have cooled and crystallized below the earth's surface, as opposed to having formed from a volcanic eruption and then cooled on the surface. Note: "Diorite is an intrusive igneous rock formed by the slow cooling underground of magma (molten rock). It is intermediate in composition between low-silica gabbro and high-silica granite." Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie The Bingie Bingie Point rocks are part of the early Devonian granites of the Moruya batholith and are 415 to 390 million years old. A batholith is a body of rock, usually granite, that has formed in the earth's crust. Note: The Devonian Period (Age of fishes) is part of the Paleozoic Era. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Basic types of igneous intrusions: 1. Laccolith 2. Small dike 3. Batholith 4. Dike 5. Sill 6. Volcanic neck and pipe 7. Lopolith. Note: After the Batholith cools, it is called a Pluton but still with solidified Sills and Dikes. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie We take a well maintained path towards the point.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie A small distance later, we see Bingie Bingie Point. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie The first rocks appear below us. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Jenni (sensibly) keeps walking on the grass . . . Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie . . . while I make my way down to the rocks.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie These huge black rocks appear on the small beach on the Northern side of the Point. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Looking back across the headland, I can see the Meringie Beach and it is yet another completely virgin beach with scrubby bushland up to the water's edge. That's me in the centre of the picture. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Jenni in the meantime keeps to the higher path and has a much easier time than me. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Jenni takes this picture of the next beach to the South, another large beach called Coila Beach. It is 4.4 kms long and it stretches all the way to Tuross Head. I'm so glad these beaches are preserved in National Parks.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie I suppose these rocks are granite; their Southern sides face away from the sun and have an orange growth on them. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Now that I'm closer I can see that these rocks are granite but the path is incredibly difficult for me with my wonky left ankle and poor balance. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie I manage my way through this boulder field without falling over or twisting something. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie I'm through the worst of it as Jenni rejoins me.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Definitely a granite. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Oh joy, oh rapture. We spot a sea lion basking on the rocks. He ignores us and keeps sleeping. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie He doesn't seem bothered that we are here. I think it is amazing that wild animals nowadays don't run in terror at the sight of a human. To think these animals were nearly wiped out a bit over a century ago. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie I yell out to a couple of women that the sea lion is here and one of them clambers up onto the rocks for a closeup. There is no way I could have got up onto these rocks but it is easy for them. Bah. Humbug.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Jenni gets a great closeup shot with her iPhone. Image trying to do this with an SLR camera and changing to a telephoto lens. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie We see our first mixed granite/diorite rock. Diorite and granite refer to the specific percentages of silica and minerals in each kind of rock. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie A small amount of water has pooled on the top of the point. This area has had a lot of rain recently. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Ah! Here it is: the feature that we'd come to see, a mixture of the two types of rock. The light-coloured diorite appears only on the northern side of the Point.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie This is the high point of our visit. These rocks were horizontal millions of years ago but over the ages tipped to the vertical, almost certainly by subduction into the upper mantle. Imagine these rocks when they were horizontal and we can see to our right, the diorite that was once forced upward through a fissure by the molten lava in the batholith. This seam runs diagonally through the picture. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie "30 million years ago, basaltic magma, possibly from Gulaga, forced itself into the cracks in the rocks to form black dykes." The diorite is an aplite and the mixture of it with the other rocks is stunning. These two completely different rocks are separated by a basaltic magma lava seam that heads towards the ocean; the rocks were probably already vertical when the lava intrusion occurred. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie "Aplite is any uniformly fine-grained (less than 2 mm), light-coloured, intrusive igneous rock that has a characteristic granular texture. Aplites can occur within granitic intrusions where it forms a narrow intrusive rock body within other rocks." Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Zealandia separated from Australia ~ 80 Mya so it is possible that this part of Eastern Australia has faced, or been a part of, the ocean for a very long time, perhaps when Australia was still joined to Gondwana. A pool has formed in the channel created by the molten magma.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Time for a selfie. "The Australian continent was created by the fusion of three early pieces of continental crust (cratons) during the Precambrian era (before 540 Mya). The South Australian craton collided with the West Australian cratons between ~830 and 750 Mya." Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie "Cycles of sedimentation and volcanism formed new continental crust, forming eastern Australia. There was a major orogeny [mountain building] event in eastern Australia from 387 to 360 Ma. The continent was affected by glaciation around 330 Ma." Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie "From 545 to 390 Ma shallow warm seas covered parts of central Australia, with a series of volcanic arcs and deep water sedimentation in the east. During this period between 480 and 460 Ma the Larapinta Seaway extended across the centre of Australia. " Wikipedia Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie I missed it at the time but, to the rear, there is a huge very dark rock joined to the granite beneath it. I must investigate this next time we visit.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Jenni walks with less difficulty than I do. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Another reason to come here is this old rusting boiler from the wreck of the SS Monaro. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie On 29 May, 1879 the SS Monaro was on voyage from Sydney to Merimbula with a cargo of general, when it ran ashore off Bingie Bingie Point, seven miles South of Moruya. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie This rusting hulk is protected under the Historic Shipwrecks Act 1976.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie How many more years are there before this structure disappears completely? Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie These look like they may be the water tubes. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie How beautiful is this?
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie We return to the car via the easy route. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Jenni likes this place best so far. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Bingie Bingie Wooden steps lead to a completely deserted beach. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach Back at the cabin, the kangaroos are still grazing.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach Look at the shoulders on the male kangaroo compared with the females' shoulders. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach Jenni wanders down to Depot Beach to take a few snaps. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach The sea is amazingly calm. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach It's great to see the kangaroos have returned to the beach.
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach This Joey looks too big to climb aboard. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach They weren't here when we visited in February last year. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach The fires of 2020 killed many of these beautiful creatures and destroyed their habitat. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach
Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach It rains a bit. Saturday 28 May, 2022 - Depot Beach For dinner tonight, we eat the leftover chicken and salad from last night. It's quite cold at the moment but there is gas heating inside the cabin and we leave this running all night. End of another great day.