"As Our Trekcart Goes Rolling Along"*

One of the chief blessings of the holidays is the opportunity to catch up with my Mum and Dad more often. Given the glorious autumn weather, we have managed quite a few 'outings' this last week. Here are some of them.Firstly, Good Friday walking on Noarlunga Beach. That's Mum powering on ahead in her little hat. Having been off school with nasty cold/flu things the week before, we were both having our first venture out into the world of physical activity. Typically, she threw herself into it and was laid low again the following day! As you can tell, I was following behind at a much more measured pace :-)This one is at Belair National Park. It is the infamous Easter Picnic with A Free Man and family. Take note of the delightful location Himself selected for us and then abandoned us to enjoy!!! I think you can just see Boy Z disappearing off into the wide blue yonder after yet another ball (that child is obsessed). Do note complete lack of CARS in the background chizz chizz chizz. Still, we were able to have a good old chat and share some of the Baby Angel's apple tarte tatins with cream and crumbled easter egg on top. :-)The next outing was to Reedy Creek, somewhere between Murray Bridge and Mannum in the South Australian Riverland....hem hem. Here are Mum and the BA at the top of the hill carrying the esky down the trail. I do not think they had seen the path which they must tread, at this point.Here is my father explaining to my mother (just out of frame) that we are about to descend into that valley below. I had to leave her out of frame because her reaction was not pretty.

"But," he protests,"Look at the wonderful rocks you will see at the bottom...."Seriously though, my Mum is a good sport and once I had taken charge of the esky and she could concentrate on her descent she was fine.

"My, my,"she enthused,"look at these beautiful rocks......they're so........BIG!"

Well done Mum. Fifty years as the wife of a geologist and all you can come up with is 'they're so big'? To be fair, as she explained, in the years when she was doing a lot of following my dad around on field trips, her prime concern was two small, adventurous, athletic girls. Who had time to take in information about the rocks?This is the 'path we must tread'. We followed a trail down to the trees on the right and after that it was clamber time. We were headed up this valley to the source of the creek.

Reedy Creek is of geological importance due to the 100% outcrop exposure. These massive granites were formed under the pressure of two plates colliding; sedimentary rocks melted, flowed and reformed creating the material you see here. In less arid times, water flowed rapidly down this creek carving out the valley and creating amazing potholes as smaller boulders ground against larger ones.The floor of the creek bed was carved out of the massive outcrop and was quite hard going for some of us. Dad was on a mission to re-shoot pictures for a field guide which needed bringing up to date so he ploughed on ahead. Apparently when the creek is flowing there is a waterfall at the head and this was his goal. The rest of us just had a bit of fun on the way.I'm scrunching my face up here because there was a particularly persistent fly which was determined to sit on my nose just as the shot was taken. A scrunched face is so much better than a fly on the nose, don't you think? Yup, they were some BIG rocks alright Mum.Finally, here's the dried up waterfall. There was still (pretty disgusting looking) water in the pool at the foot of the fall but other than that the smooth rocks and telltale tide marks were the only signs of the torrent that flows here from time to time.

By the time we made the waterfall, the sun was high and our overcast windy autumn day had transformed into a corker. Photo shoot completed we headed back to where we'd stashed the esky and back up the hill for the drive home. We had to drive through Woodside however because there is another item of interest to Dad there.

It was a lovely day all round and as we kept reminding Mum, it was the first time we'd seen any of it 'from that side'. Family joke. You had to be there.

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* Mum was regaling us with Girl Guide walking songs, except they were Scout ones because in those days you had to borrow everything from the blokes....

"In and Out
Hear them shout
Gee I'm glad that I'm a Scout
As our trekcart keeps rolling along."

What were they on about?

For Those Who Love Learning

Tonight I am going to take you on a journey, a journey through time both ancient and modern.

The cover of the book you see here is safely reproduced, I believe, as it is no longer in print and as one of the authors is my father. It is an excellent publication released circa 1968 and containing a wealth of information on the geology of the Adelaide Region. I bring it to you now as a direct result of the farcical Year 10 Coastal Excursion.

You may (or may not) recall that one of our ‘educational’ stops was at the remarkable

Hallett Cove where “many of the important geological events recorded in South Australia can be studied” (Talbot & Nesbitt 1968 p18). Of course there was a complete lack of interest in this activity by any of my students but I did reflect that although I had a sketchy knowledge of the area gained through the information plaques dotted about the Cove and the question book the students were required to complete, I would love to have the opportunity to gain a greater understanding of the region.

This is ironic. As a child I had been on the Hallett Cove excursion with my father and his Geology 101 students on a number of occasions. They usually took place on a Saturday and afforded my mother some much needed ‘child free time’ as well as opportunities for father-daughter bonding between said father, my sister and I. It hardly need be said that we gained little in terms of education from these trips, a frequently heard mantra being “Daaaaad. I don’t CARE if that’s a nice example of ‘cross-bedding’.” (I might explain here that cross-bedding is a geological term describing a manner in which sediments have been laid down, not a euphemistic reference to adultery).

But I digress. All those childhood opportunities to fully appreciate the geological history of South Australia were lost in a sea of youthful apathy not dissimilar to that of my Year 10 Geography students. Now however, I had the chance to correct this situation. Mum and Dad are here for one more week and I am on holidays so I suggested to Dad that we spend the morning together visiting Hallett Cove.

I will attempt to encapsulate for the lay person, what I learned from my father last Thursday.

Let us begin with geological time. About 600 million years ago, during the Precambrian period, sedimentary rocks were laid down in shallow water, such as a river delta, and about 500 million years ago they were subjected to enormous pressures probably brought about by a collision of continents or at least the plates upon which the continents rode.

These pressures caused an enormous distortion and uplifting resulting in a massive mountain range running north/south along the current coast of South Australia.

This is what’s left of them.

Over two hundred million years passed. The mighty mountain range was eroded away by the elements. Sediments were probably laid down over the top and eroded away again. The Cambrian period gave way to the Ordovician, the Silurian, the Devonian and the Carboniferous. Rocks were formed and laid down, perhaps twisted and changed, we don’t know. Nothing of this two hundred million year's worth of geological history remains. Instead, at the top of this cliff there exists a geological ‘unconformity’. 270 million year old rocks sitting directly on top of 600 million year old rocks, on an irregular surface polished, scratched and shaped by glaciers.

Imagine the force of ice pressing down over time on this rock. Can you see the large undulations in the surface and the smaller, obvious scratches running approximately north/south? Throughout the Permian period sands and clays were deposited onto the exposed Pre Cambrian bed by the retreating glaciers. These appear as a prominent white and red layers across the landscape and contain boulders called ‘erratics’ dropped by floating ice into the lake sediments below. In the photo below look carefully at the red layer in the centre to see an example of one of these ‘dropstones’.

Once you have spotted it you can start to see more of them scattered throughout the Permian layers.

As you can tell from the amazing shapes and colours in this Permian layer, the soft material is easily eroded and indeed in the following 200 million years, this layer and whatever was once laid over the top of it were again stripped by the elements. The next obvious layer in the geological ‘cake’ is a thin, hard band of calcareous sandstone, approximately 5 million years old and containing numerous marine fossils. This is the Pliocene marine bed.

Here you can see Dad examining it and at about the line of the brim of his hat you can see the sediment cutting through the geological sequence.

Above it, relatively recent layers of alluvial sediments attest to the creation of the Adelaide Hills with streams bearing freshwater sediments now running down towards the marine Pliocene layer. These alluvial sediments were laid down in the last million years, known as the Pleistocene period.

One of the features of these more recent rocks is the records they contain pertaining to climate change. In the middle of the sequence there is a spectacular red and white mottled fossil soil known as laterite. These soils are typically seen in tropical climates where heavy rain has leached the nutrients from the soil leaving, in this case, mainly iron oxide and aluminium silicates.

Here’s an example where the laterite is exposed and weathered resulting in this spectacular outcrop. At the time these rocks were soil, our dry old Adelaide coast was a tropical paradise.

Later, near the top, a ‘kunkar’ layer contains the typical nodules of calcium carbonate formed in dry climate soils. It seems ‘climate change’ is nothing new.

This starkly beautiful landscape is described in the line drawing below. The laterite layer can be clearly seen through the middle of the upper red alluvial deposits. Nature has helpfully exposed an entire 270 million years of history for us here.

Finally, look down the coast at the exposed glacial valley.

Can’t see it?

I love that it is so obvious once you know what you’re looking at.

This is an incredibly brief summary of our amazing morning. I learned so much more about the history of geological discovery, beliefs, misconceptions and revelations. I learned about methods for dating rocks and looking critically at ‘geo-morphology’.

I learned about how much has been added to geological knowledge since my Dad’s book was published 40 years ago.

I came away feeling energised, washed clean and intellectually stimulated. I wondered whether I would have felt the same way at the age of 15 and I had to admit that I probably wouldn’t have. Why then am I surprised by the lack of enthusiasm from my pupils?

As a tiny little spooky post script I found this map in Dad’s book.

Can you see Eden Avenue and the words Sturt Gorge? Well, by use of Google Earth I can tell you that situated around about the position of the first letter T in Sturt, is our house. I wonder if you’d told my Father in 1968 that his 7 year old daughter would one day be married and living on this map, whether he would have believed you?

NB: For those of you who subscribe to the Biblical ideas of 7 day creation and a 6000 year old Earth, remember that for God a million years is but the blink of an eye.

Please Miss: What does this look like to you????

The Baby Angel reminded me of the last story (I promise) from the Year 10 Excursion.

"Mum," she asked, "did you tell them about the boys and 'it's a penis miss'.....?????"

How had that one momentarily slipped my mind?

It was part of the lunch stop. The same one where we'd had the food fight. I had wandered across the park, past a group of lads, just as one of them said loudly, and explosively, "Look dude, this water bottle is shaped like a PENIS!!!!"

The group immediately realised that I had overheard this observational revelation so they naturally fell about shrieking with laughter and looking expectantly at me to see my reaction.

It had been a long morning. The last thing I felt like doing was trying to discipline ferral fourteen year old testosterone ridden boys over their inappropriate language in a public place. And anyway, was it inappropriate? I mean, at least they didn't bellow 'dick' or any number of other unsavoury euphemisms through public airspace. I simply rolled my eyes at them, smiled and said.......actually, I can't remember exactly what I said. It may have been, 'really boys, exactly how many penis jokes do we have to hear before you tire of them?' or ' this preoccupation with penises is concerning boys...you must spend a lot of time looking at them...' or simply ' are all penises that funny?'. I can't remember. Maybe those were things I wish I'd said! Regardless, it was an attempt at flippant humour and it backfired radically. They shrieked with laughter all the more.

"Miss said penis!!!!!She said penis!!!!"

They ran off in the opposite direction, still shrieking with laughter and when I passed them a few minutes later they were all lined up with the few extra friends who obviously didn't believe them and were here for the evidence. I could tell what was coming so I gave them the royal wave as I walked past and they all caterwauled
'penis miss, penis penis penis...bwahahahahahahahahaha'...........

*sigh* the things you have to put up with.

As a foot note I might add that they tried it again the next day at school but were a little more subdued due to their surroundings. I came up close to them this time and told them they'd gone far enough and that the joke needed to stop now. It's all about knowing where the line is boys...

To their credit they did pull their heads in. Far enough to gaze on their own penises.

I left them to their reverie.

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Attrition and Abrasion of the Soul

As I dragged myself into the staffroom at 3pm, hot, sweaty, flushed and hanging out for a coffee, one of my colleagues entered from another door and innocently inquired as to where I'd been all day. "Out with the Year 10s to the coast," was my loaded reply and she grinned sympathetically and asked where we had taken them.

"Who cares?" I let fly. "We could have driven up and down the coast all day stopping at random intervals to let them off the bus and then loading them back on and they would have learned just about the same amount!"

My colleague shrieked with laughter as I continued. "We took them to Hallet Cove (above) where they complained bitterly about how they had to walk for miles and miles and miles and why couldn't the bus meet us at the end of the walk and why did we have to walk back again and why wasn't there a kiosk and why did we have to be on an excursion and 'this excursion sucks' and why do we have to walk along a beach????"

Hell. Poor kids. We made them WALK ALONG A BEACH. Someone should inform the United Nations or the NAPCC.

Then there was the steep walk down the 'hell stairs' that 'sucked' and were 'retarded' to the beach where they found CRABS!! And KILLED them! Yes folks. Leave a group of 14 year old boys alone with crabs on a beach for 3 minutes and they organise a crab fight and finish it off by smashing the crabs with rocks except for Bob who 'only killed it to put it out of its misery because it was already half dead because Phil had smashed it.....'

You think I'm making this up don't you?

Then you round them up and herd them up the 'retarded' stairs and why do we have to walk so far and I'm hot and I need a drink and I'm hungry and I didn't know there wasn't a kiosk here...what do you mean it was on the permission form Miss? Who reads those? And where are we going now and will there be a kiosk? and why do we have to do this anyway and I don't want to go on this bus I want to go with my friend on the other bus and now I've lost my bag...oh I think I left it on the other bus and how long will this take miss and what are the answers and oh I'll fill them in on the bus....

So we get to the next stop where we have lunch. We're already 45 minutes behind schedule and most of my educational interactions with the kids consist of 'hurry up', 'walk faster' and 'you're not in our group...go back to your teacher'. We arrive at the park for lunch and the lead teacher has already phoned us on the mobile to say don't worry about doing the questions at this stop, just read out the answers on the bus. We sit down in the beautiful weather (rain held off) and watch a group of 14 year old boys begin to engage in a food throwing contest across the park.

"Pick up the apples!!!!!!"

"But Miss, they'll biodegrade."

"Great! Let them do it in the bin."
(And you will biodegrade nicely too you little toerag if I terminate your miserable existence now as I am tempted to do and as you had no qualms about doing to the CRABS!!!! spoken under my breath)

OK. Back on the bus. What have we learned so far? Nothing at the extraordinarily beautiful cove with the phenomenal examples of glacial striations, erratics and spectacular wave cut platform with remarkable folding and weathering. Unless you count how much force it takes to kill a crab with a rock. OK maybe something then. Nothing at the picturesque historic park on the headland which was once the regular camp of the traditional Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains. Check. So where to now? Let's try looking at the urban uses of the coast further north towards the city and in particular the development of sea wall technology.

Or let's just see how much we can offend the proprietors of the local cafe by loudly accusing them of putting up prices for the students and asking to buy cigarettes whilst in school uniform.

You get the picture.

Actually I managed, through some divine intervention perhaps, to keep a sense of humour throughout most of this. At one point I saw one of my colleagues with his group gathered around his feet explaining intently and passionately how the glaciers had moved through the area and how the wave cut platform had been smoothed by the action of the sea. A glance at the bored faces of his 'audience' had reduced another colleague and I to helpless tears of laughter (unkind I know) and as he trailed up the 'hell' stairs past us we managed to stifle our snorting and call encouragingly to him;

Pearls before swine mate! Pearls before swine!!!!!!!!!!!!

You gotta laugh.

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I Reeeeeally CAN'T Get Out Of It Can I?

OK. The day has dawned. There is a possibility of rain to add to the mix. My prayed for gastric bug has not eventuated. I am eyeing the razors.........

Best Shot Monday: The Turtle, or is it a Tortoise?

This is the best I have to offer from last week. It's the only photo I can post from our trip to the zoo with year 9! I must say I love the striking green of the pond weed and who can resist a turtle anyway?

The zoo trip was relatively painfree I am relieved to report after last year when we had to send someone back to school in a taxi for deliberately throwing a small hard object at another student's face! No, this year the most trying part was the amount of walking we had to do from one end of town to the other as we took in a tourism walk, a walk through the Rainforest Conservatory of the Botanic Gardens and finally the Rainforest Immersion Display at the zoo.

As on most school excursions, the students had a booklet to fill in which required them answering questions along the route. Well, typically, I lost count of the number of times I had to suggest to a pupil that they get their booklet out of their bag and fill in the answers which I was in the process of supplying! Yes, you read right. Students nowadays do not FIND the answers to questions on a field trip, they are given them by the teacher and the only challenging thing they have to do is write them down quickly enough to be ready when the teacher goes on to the next question! It's pathetic but if you didn't do it they wouldn't write a thing down!!!! I sometimes wonder, even with all the amazing quality 'sights' we have to experience nowadays, whether we should bother leaving the classroom. After our 'set' walks the kids were given 40 minutes free time to wander the zoo and get the answers to some 'bonus' questions. This enabled them to look at some of the other 'non' rainforest animals such as the ever popular meerkats. We teachers headed to the central cafe rendezvous point to await their return for lunch only to find the tables full of our pupils after 15 minutes. Apparently that's all the zoo you need to see at 14. :-)

This week I have the dubious privilege of 'volunteering' for the Year 10 Geography 'Coastal' excursion to wonderful places like Hallett Cove just south of the city. This group are the hideous year nines from last year and as the dread day approaches I find myself wondering if the terrible gastric bug reputedly lurking in Adelaide's environs at present, is not currently incubating in my lower digestive tract. I feel sure it must be. Surely.

What could be so bad about a day trip to the beach I hear you ask? You do not know these students. These are the group involved in the notorious 'Water Bomb' outing last year. The group who, on their camp earlier this year managed 2 broken ankles, a sprained wrist and to shut down the swimming pool by throwing cow 'pats' in the water. The group who walked away from the dining hall leaving more food on the floor and walls than either in their bellies or on their plates. The group who argued blind with me that a single Wikipedia reference was a sufficient bibliography for a research essay and that there was no need to reference 'books' as the teacher wouldn't be able to 'check up' on them!!!!!!!

Wish me luck. I am sure it will be an eventful day. I only pray we don't have to fill in any police reports afterwards.

Click over to 'Mother May I' where the gang will be sharing some inspirational photography with, hopefully, minimal police presence.