Sleeps Hill Quarries
Twelve quarries were developed near Sleeps Hill in two separate beds of quartzite - the upper and lower quartzite, which crop out on both sides of a steep valley overlooking Adelaide. The lower outcrops were exploited first and operations gradually moved eastwards and higher up the valley.
The quarries are on a reserve managed by the City of Mitcham, and an interpretive walking trail has been established in conjunction with the Department of Mines and Energy. Spectacular ripple-marked surfaces are preserved in the rocks and large-scale folds reflect the intensity of the forces which deformed the rocks nearly 500 million years ago.
The native vegetation is open woodland with scattered shrubs, herbs and grasses. The most conspicuous trees are eucalypts and drooping sheoaks. The grey box with dark grey, rough-textured bark is the most common with a few smooth, pale-stemmed South Australian blue gums. Smaller native trees scattered throughout the woodland are golden wattle, graceful native apricot and semi-parasitic native cherry.
Small native plants can be seen particularly near the Hill Street and Mead Street ends of the trail, where olives have been cut down and boneseed hand-pulled. You will see a range of shrubs such as kangaroo thorn, Christmas bush, hopbush, bush pea, native lilac and golden guinea' flowers, as well as tussocks of native kangaroo grass and wallaby grass. In spring, several small lilies send up flowering stalks. You may also find sundews, native bluebells, the scarlet running postman and parsley fern.
Early morning is the best time to see bush birds. Large conspicuous birds are the white-backed magpie, little raven and kookaburra. Smaller birds include red-browed finch, superb blue wren, grey fantail, willie wagtail, striated pardalote, eastern spinebill, white-plumed and New Holland honeyeaters, noisy miner, rainbow and musk lorikeets, and the Adelaide and eastern rosellas.
On hot days you may glimpse a quick-moving small lizard, such as the common grass skink, or find a large scaly backed, stumpy tail lizard asleep in the sun.
The trail is about two kilometres long, with several very steep sections, and takes two to three hours to complete. Interpretive signs illustrate geological features and how the rock was quarried and treated.
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