Last Saturday, 15 May, a group of keen tree planters came together to support the Clifton Falls Walkway Community project by planting around 800 (!) native plants.
Thank you to everyone who came along and made a difference! The Clifton Falls Walkway will be an amazing community asset for the future and it will be great to go back in a few years and see the area transform into a riparian corridor for native birds, invertebrates and humans to enjoy!
Thanks to the Alliance Group and New World Waitaki all volunteers enjoyed a delicious lunch!
The Clifton Falls Walkway project is a community project led by Jane Strang and is an ORC Ecofund recipient. It aims to improve biodiversity and habitat for native birds and invertebrates by creating a riparian corridor alongside the walkway (around 2km), using a variety of locally sourced native plant species. The Waitaki Whitestone Geopark was proud to support Jane by helping her to organise this Community Planting event.
The geology of Clifton Falls is also very interesting - with outcrops visible alongside the river.
The GNS 2001 Geological map records:
Semi-schist - Sediments consisting of sands and muds that were originally washed off from Gondwana and deposited in a marine environment that have been somewhat changed under heat and pressure to form the basement rock of the Geopark (and beyond). These are the oldest rocks in the geopark.
After these rocks formed, Zealandia separated from Gondwana (about 80 million years ago). Basement rocks above sea level began to be eroded and the resulting sediments were deposited via rivers and swamps etc. This formation is called the Taratu Formation. During this time quartz sands and gravels were deposited as well as swampy deposits which later formed coal in places (not necessarily in the the Clifton Falls area).
As the crust of Zealandia continued to stretch and thin, sea level rose in relation to the land and the area was under the sea. During this period marine sediments were deposited.
Since this time the sea has regressed (in relation to the land) and river gravels have been deposited. Rivers have cut back down through their own deposits - leaving a record of their historic courses across and through the land.