One of Roys favourite pastimes is heading out for an adventure, and one of his favourite places to explore is The Skillion at Terrigal (NSW). In fact, when his cousin Toby was visiting he insisted that a trip to The Skillion was very important. Terrigal is a place which Roy finds fascinating, not least because visiting often involves eating fish and chips on the beach. The real reason though is that Roy loves fossils. The way that fossils just emerge out of rocks, and the anticipation of finding out if anything is inside the rock is something we both enjoy and a visit to Terrigal is never complete without trying our luck finding a fossil or two at The Skillion.
The Skillion is one of the most famous features of Terrigal and most of the children Roy knows have seen it at some stage. Very few of them know about the fossils found in the rock of the Skillion though. In the whale watching season it is a great place to spy whales from, and kids also love running (or if the ground isn't too wet rolling) down the hill. If you would like to visit, follow the signs to Terrigal Haven and find a place to leave the car in the big carpark. The Skillion itself is hard to miss as it is a huge, very steep, grassy hill which gets narrower towards the top. It is a strangely shaped headland, made up of fossil rich rocks. At the top of The Skillion there is a lookout and underneath, to its side, is a small, steep, rocky beach. Be careful of the tides and of the rock overhang if you plan to go onto the beach and make sure to supervise small children.
Terrigal was first settled by Europeans in the 1800s, with a settler called John Gray moving into the area in 1826. He called his property Tarrygal, after the local Aboriginal name for the area. By the 1870s there was a sawmill in the area and a jetty on the beach where the timber could be loaded onto ships to be taken to Sydney. Then, in the late 1800s, as people became more interested in tourism and health, Terrigal became a tourist destination, especially after the railway from Sydney to Newcastle, stopping by Gosford, opened up. Terrigal is still a popular holiday destination today.
Amongst the many things people enjoyed doing while holidaying at Terrigal was looking for fossils under the Skillion. This was still a very popular pastime well into the 1960s and 1970s and many people who holidayed in the area, like Roys Grandma, seem to have strong memories of the search. There is something unforgettable about finding fossils, partly due to the fact that, if you 'open' a rock containing a fossil yourself, you are the first person to see it as it has been locked away for millions of years. Fossils usually are found in the shale type rock at the Skillion and to 'open' them, look for a fault in the rock, like the one Roy is pointing to in the photo above, and carefully pull (or split) the rock open. You can easily find fossils on the beach next to The Skillion today, but if you plan to have a look for fossils and take any home with you make sure you have found out if you need a license or special permission to collect and remove them. Roy likes to look at the fossils lying exposed on the beach, but he has plenty of fossils already in his collection, so he leaves them behind for others to enjoy. Usually, you don't even need to open or split the rocks at the Skillion beach open as the the waves and weather have often broken the rocks open and they are so fossil rich that the top and bottom of many pieces already display plant fossils (mostly ferns). Also, be careful on the beach and make sure not to go too close to the underside of The Skillion itself as one downside of the fossil rich rock is that it is a bit unstable. Occasionally big chunks fall off, and you don’t want to be under one!
