Recumbent Fold

It was windy the first day at Carrickalinga, and not very hot, so Pliny and Nostradamus decided to go to Second Valley where the geology is spectacular.

They wound down through the round yellow hills and stopped at the carpark under the pines beside the ancient caravan park. Pine cones dropped dangerously around them. They walked the short distance to the lower carpark, where a busload of schoolchildren were getting into wetsuits ready to go canoeing in the sea.

Pliny and Nostradamus have been to Second Valley many times before. They know where to go to see the recumbent fold. Along a cemented path under the cliff, on the left, where once long ago the earth moved, the rocks are folded like a tablecloth or a ribbon of paper, and have turned over on themselves so that some of them are upside down. Remarkably this looks like the rings of a petrified tree, and the colours are of caramel, licorice and chocolate.

As you follow the path around the base of the cliff you emerge onto a rocky platform with multitudinous multicoloured rocks of all sizes everywhere. Most of the big ones are tilted at an angle of 45 degrees from the horizontal ( and the vertical ). The teeteringly steep cliff is behind you. If you turn and look up at it you will fall back dizzily with the illusion it is tumbling towards you. This is because the white clouds are rapidly moving over the top in the blue sky. If you were to fall backwards it would be into a rock pool of deep sea water and invisible dangers. It is advisable therefore to turn around again, and sit down.

An eerie clanging sound punctuates the wind. It is a couple of pieces of corrugated iron all but detached from the roof of one of the dozen disused boatsheds that are decomposing on the promontory several metres to your right. Totally surreal, they have been fenced off from the general public by a metal gate and a string of orange flags.

Pliny is looking at the water, but she can't see in. She pulls her hood tightly over her cap so the cap won't blow off. Nostradamus is climbing over some nearby rocks to get a better look at something. He comes back. It's time to go. On the way back along the cement path the wind drops and they see the children splashing and trying to tip one another out of their coloured canoes.