The Bouddi National Park is a coastal

national park A national park is a nature park, natural park in use for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes, created and protected by national governments. Often it is a reserve of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that a sovereign state dec ...

that is located in the Central Coast region of

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

, in eastern

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. The national park is situated northeast of

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mountain ...

. A section of the national park extends into the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea (Māori: ''Te Tai-o-Rēhua'', ) is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abe ...

, creating fully protected land, shore and marine habitats. The park contains one of the last mature temperate rainforests on the Central Coast, Fletchers Glen.

History

The Bouddi National Park was originally known as the ''Bouddi Natural Park''. It received its name at the second meeting of the park trust held on 5 July 1936. Other names considered were ''Maitland Bay Park'', ''Cape Three Points Reserve'' and ''Gerrinbombi Park''. The reason for the choice was that ''Bouddi'' is the authenticated aboriginal name of the most conspicuous feature of the district and appears on maps as early as 1828. Bouddi is an indigenous word for the heart. The trust had been founded the year earlier to manage the reserve and had representation from the ''NSW Federation of Bushwalking Clubs'' and Erina Shire Council. In 1967 the park, by then totalling about , was dedicated as a national park under the newly passed legislation and was renamed ''Bouddi State Park''. Its management became the responsibility of the

NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service The National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) is a directorate of the New South Wales Department of Planning and Environment responsible for managing most of the protected areas in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Despite its name the ...

, and soon afterwards the trust was reconstituted as an advisory committee. On 1 January 1974, the National Parks and Wildlife Act dispensed with the category of state parks and Bouddi was renamed ''Bouddi National Park''.

Geology and climate

The rocks underlying the Bouddi peninsula is primarily

Hawkesbury sandstone Sydney sandstone is the common name for Sydney Basin Hawkesbury Sandstone, one variety of which is historically known as Yellowblock, and also as "yellow gold" a sedimentary rock named after the Hawkesbury River north of Sydney, where this ...

. The coastal areas contain several examples of

tessellated pavement In geology and geomorphology, a tessellated pavement is a relatively flat rock surface that is subdivided into more or less regular rectangles, blocks approaching rectangles, or irregular or regular polygons by fractures, frequently systematic jo ...

s and

laterite Laterite is both a soil and a rock type rich in iron and aluminium and is commonly considered to have formed in hot and wet tropical areas. Nearly all laterites are of rusty-red coloration, because of high iron oxide content. They develop by ...

plateaus. There are also significant examples of the

Terrigal Formation The Terrigal Formation is a geologic formation in the Sydney Basin in eastern Australia. Commonly seen in the Central Coast region, this stratum is up to 330 metres thick. Formed in the early to mid Triassic, it is part of the Narrabeen Group of ...

Biology

Flora

The Park contains three broad categories of vegetation:

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

, ''

Eucalyptus ''Eucalyptus'' () is a genus of over seven hundred species of flowering trees, shrubs or mallees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Along with several other genera in the tribe Eucalypteae, including '' Corymbia'', they are commonly known as euca ...

'' forest and grassy woodland.

Fauna

The park contains a wide diversity of animal life. A number of mammal species, including

microbat Microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera (bats). Bats have long been differentiated into Megachiroptera (megabats) and Microchiroptera, based on their size, the use of echolocation by the Microchiroptera a ...

s, greater gliders and other

marsupial Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...

s are found in the Park. Reptile species present include

lace monitor The lace monitor or tree goanna (''Varanus varius'') is a member of the monitor lizard family native to eastern Australia. A large lizard, it can reach in total length and in weight. The lace monitor is considered to be a least-concern species ...

s, green tree snakes and water dragons. Over 150 species of bird have been documented in the area. The marine component of the Park has similarly high biodiversity. The marine extension of the park was found to have led to a 70% increase in fish numbers in the area than nearby comparators, and 60% higher numbers of species. A number of large mammals regularly frequent the area, including

humpback whale The humpback whale (''Megaptera novaeangliae'') is a species of baleen whale. It is a rorqual (a member of the family Balaenopteridae) and is the only species in the genus ''Megaptera''. Adults range in length from and weigh up to . The hump ...

southern right whale The southern right whale (''Eubalaena australis'') is a baleen whale, one of three species classified as right whales belonging to the genus ''Eubalaena''. Southern right whales inhabit oceans south of the Equator, between the latitudes of 20 ...

s and bottlenose and

common dolphin The common dolphin (''Delphinus delphis'') is the most abundant cetacean in the world, with a global population of about six million. Despite this fact and its vernacular name, the common dolphin is not thought of as the archetypal dolphin, wit ...

s. Leopard seals and

fur seals Fur seals are any of nine species of pinnipeds belonging to the subfamily Arctocephalinae in the family '' Otariidae''. They are much more closely related to sea lions than true seals, and share with them external ears (pinnae), relatively lon ...

have occasionally been seen on coastal rock platforms.

Nearby National Parks

The following National Parks are within 50 km of Bouddi National Park:

References

External links

* *
Guide to Bouddi National Park
- bushwalks, beaches, lookouts and camping areas. ''Hiking the World.'' Retrieved 2 January 2021 * * {{authority control National parks of New South Wales Central Coast (New South Wales) Protected areas established in 1967 1967 establishments in Australia