Barrenjoey, New South Wales


Barrenjoey is a locality in the suburb of Palm Beach, at the most northern tip of Pittwater. The headland is made up primarily of sandstones of the Newport Formation, the top third is a cap of Hawkesbury sandstone. Around 10,000 years ago the headland was cut off from the mainland due to the rising sea level; subsequent buildup of a sand spit or tombolo reconnected the island to the mainland. It is the location of the Barrenjoey Head Lighthouse, a lighthouse that was first lit in 1881. In 1995 Barrenjoey was gazetted into Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.

History

On 2 March 1788, Arthur Phillip named the headland "Barrenjuee". The name changed its spelling over time, Barrenjoey now being the accepted name since 1966.
Since the 1980s it has been featured heavily in the soap opera Home and Away, during both the credits and the show itself.

Ecological communities

Mapping by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage in 2013 shows Barrenjoey headland containing tiny pockets of Coastal escarpment littoral rainforest, a particular subgroup of the Littoral Rainforest community, which is an endangered ecological community, together with the communities: Coastal Headland Clay Heath, Coastal Sand Tea-tree-Banksia Scrub, Central Coast Escarpment Moist Forest, and Coastal Sandstone Foreshores Forest.