Participants: Nicky van Berkel, Charles Smith, Gonny Houtsma, Hugo Leggatt, Wolf Schneider, Bill Turner, Gillian Forbes, Ed Shuttleworth, Werner Frei, Fay and Dave Jones, Fred van Berkel (Leader), and 11 visitors.
Hike statistics:
A Grade 0 beach walk covering 6.4 km. Required permission: none.
This hike was billed as a walk into the past, looking at animal tracks preserved in the late Pleistocene-age fossilised dune rock outcropping along a 3 km stretch of Goukamma Nature Reserve coastline east of Platbank. In preparation for this easy outing, I gave a talk at the monthly club social explaining the paleoclimate conditions that shaped the distinctive Garden Route scenery along this piece of coastline. Animal tracks, interpreted to have been made by elephant, lion, various sizes of ungulates and others are preserved in the fossilised dune rock outcropping along the coast.
12 Members and 11 guests braved the cool, partially cloudy weather behind a recent cold front. We looked at most of the trackways, also known as ichnofossils. Unfortunately, several were covered by beach sand and some suffered from weathering damage. The lion track has been largely destroyed by someone who attempted to make a cast using fibreglass!
Small ungulate tracks
Large ungulate tracks
Although the hike was graded as 0M, recent beach erosion beyond the large ungulate trackway has exposed large, partially moss-covered slabs of fossil dune rock (above). Most hikers scrambled across these to look at some small ungulate tracks beyond.
Thanks to those who joined me in admiring these trackways which are part of the Garden Route’s heritage.
Fred van Berkel – meet leader