A group of folk gathered on Saturday morning 18th March 2023 to take an exploratory guided walk with museum scientist Kevin Cole at the reserve.
After as brief introduction to the layout of the 300 ha coastal protected area and the origins of the reserve status (a municipal reserve proclaimed in 2004) the gathering set off to the first stop – a coastal midden accessed after crossing the dunes via a wooden boardwalk to the beach.
Vistas across to the the East London harbour (the only river port in SA on the Buffalo River) were noted as well as a doleritic boulder beach curving around the famous Nahoon Point.
An explanation was also shared of an ancient lithified beach (covered in sand on the day) which with a keen eye reveals some stone tools. This beach is just before one of four coves eroded out over eons by wave action after the mobile dunes systems fossilised. Shipwreck material is often noted in the area as many wooden and steam ships have been wrecked close to Nahoon Point. One young participant even found some coal from the SS Cadwallon which wrecked off Eastern Beach in 1929 (see a previous post). Below is a photo of the steam whistle from the ship on display in the museum maritime gallery. Also below a map illustrating some of the shipwrecks off Nahoon.
Just after the establishment of the Nahoon Point Nature Reserve, Kevin Cole and respected conservation official Robert Stegmann planned a number of walking routes in the reserve the most notable being the wooden boardwalk close to the MBSA Coastal Education and Visitor Centre. This well used walk way was designed to be accessible to elderly folk and those people that use wheelchairs for mobility. Part of the wooden boardwalk is illustrated below.
A recently refurbished whale watching platform was constructed after vagrants burnt down the original one (the photo above shows people on the platform during the outing). During the months of May through to November this destination point in the reserve is excellent to view passing humpback whales (on their annual migratory route up the coast from the Antarctic and down again to spending summer months feeding on krill in the circumpolar regions). Large numbers of long-beaked common dolphins are also a treat visually from this platform normally chasing down bait balls during the annual sardine run.
One of the highlights to any walking tour of the reserve is a stop at the site where the world’s oldest anatomically modern human trace fossil footprints were discovered in 1964. Pictured below is a file photo of the two gentlemen who discovered the site – Rhett Kaizer and Bill Hartely (centre of the photo).
Under the mentorship of the late geologist Dr Dave Roberts (Council of Geoscience) Kevin Cole was instructed on how to work the site with the hope of finding additional trace fossil track ways. The file photo below shows the early days of excavation work undertaken on the aeolianite sandstone bedding planes above the paleo-surface where the human trace fossil footprints were found.
The Friends of the East London Museum and in particular Chairperson Charmaine De ‘Arth and committee member Noreen Burton are thanked for organising the event attended by 43 people.
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