Cudgera | Hastings Point

Cudgera | Hastings Point factsheet(PDF, 88KB)

The oldest rocks in the Tweed caldera are found at Hastings Point, known for many years as Cudgera Headland.

This area was formed deep underwater by many layers of sediment, hundreds of millions of years before the first volcanic period, when Australia was still on the edge of Gondwana. The headland bears a unique feature called a drag fold and fault, resulting from the fracture and folding of the original rock bed. This fault line is evidence of tectonic forces acting on the rock bed following the breakup of the Gondwana supercontinent.

Cudgera is a significant cultural landscape. The broader area offered a rich environment, evidenced by nearby fish traps, middens, and camp sites. On the Headland is a quarry site, where rock such as greywacke was sought after and used to shape and flake tools.

Hastings Point features a wide reef platform with tide pools that provide a significant ecological habitat for marine creatures. The area provides habitat for Critically Endangered beach nesting birds such as Beach Stone-curlews.

Hastings Point and surrounds support a variety of important habitats. South of Hastings Point is a tall, fire damaged remnant of Critically Endangered Littoral Rainforest. Between Hastings Point and Round Mountain to the west is an area of the Endangered Ecological Community Swamp Sclerophyll Forest.

The estuary at Cudgera Creek, immediately north of Hastings Point, is the only Tweed Coast estuary without man-made sea walls. This important estuarine environment filters pollutants, helps stabilise the shoreline from flooding and erosion and provides food and habitat for birds, fishes and other wildlife. Sensitive estuarine mangrove forests fringing the estuary provide critical nesting sites for many birds. Cudgera Creek Park, on Tweed Coast Road and right next to the estuary, is a known nesting site for the Critically Endangered Beach Stone-curlew.