Cape Paterson (Bunurong coast) By Shauna Alen

 The Bunurong coast stretches 17 kilometres along the southern coast of Victoria.  The Bunurong coast park was first established in 1991 and is around 1660km in size  the bunurong coast has a wide variety of flora and fauna life, many are rarely found in Victoria. The marine park has a wide variety of activities including snorkelling, surfing, swimming and many other boating activities.

Biological isolation Australia's plants and animals are very different from other countries because millions of years ago when Australia split from the other continents it resulted in our plants and animals having to grow to different weather patterns, creating different soils in the ground for the plants to adapt and then the animals had to adapt to the different foods to eat.  The Bunurong coast is full of many different habitats and a lot of vegetation. Where as between cape Patterson and Inverlock there is very little vegetation covering the rock faces,high headlands and steep cliffs this is because of the southwest winds that the Bunurong coast is not getting.  Some of the different habitats vary from sandy beaches, intertidal/subtidal rocky reefs and subtidal soft sediments  Some of the rocky reefs have arisen due to normal weathering and erosion processes that effects the coastal sediment formations, this includes waves, wind, drying and wetting and salt crystallisation.

Geological stability  Due to Australia being away from the tectonic plate boundaries there are not volcano eruptions and no mountain ranges rise, the only thing that has changed Australia's form in erosion. the Bunurong coast is surrounded buy a lot of sandstone cliffs, sandy coves. These were formed by erosion on the water and the wind. due to the position of the Bunurong coast you may not find other sandy coves like that in any other parts of Australia. The gradual sloping nature of the Bunurong coast protects the coast from very high-energy waves that would usually occur in cape Liptrap and cape Schanck.

Climate variations  The global warming is having a big effect on the Bunurong coast’s climate. Due to global warming the earth is getting hotter which is making the water temperature rise, this is causing the icecaps to melt and water levels to rise. This is effecting the Bunurong coast because the water levels rising are making changes to the shorelines and the features