Cape du Couedic is a

headland A headland, also known as a head, is a coastal landform, a point of land usually high and often with a sheer drop, that extends into a body of water. It is a type of promontory. A headland of considerable size often is called a cape.Whittow, Jo ...

in the Australian state of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a States and territories of Australia, state in the southern central part of Australia. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories by area, which in ...

located on the southwest tip of

Kangaroo Island Kangaroo Island (, ) is Australia's third-largest island, after Tasmania and Melville Island, Northern Territory, Melville Island. It lies in the state of South Australia, southwest of Adelaide. Its closest point to the mainland is Snapper Poi ...

in the locality of Flinders Chase. It was named after a French naval officer, , by the

Baudin expedition to Australia The Baudin expedition of 1800 to 1803 was a French expedition to map the coast of New Holland (now Australia). Nicolas Baudin was selected as leader in October 1800. The expedition started with two ships, '' Géographe'', captained by Baudin, a ...

during January 1803. It is the site for the Cape du Couedic Lighthouse. It is currently located within the

Flinders Chase National Park Flinders Chase National Park (formerly Flinders Chase) is a protected area in the Australian state of South Australia located at the west end of Kangaroo Island about west-south west of the state capital of Adelaide and west of the municipal ...

Description

Cape du Couedic is located southwest of the municipal seat of Kingscote at the most southwesterly point of the Kangaroo Island coast. It is the termination for a pair of coastlines - the western coastline extending from

Cape Borda Cape Borda is a headland in the Australian state of South Australia located in the gazetted locality of Cape Borda on the north west tip of Kangaroo Island about west of the municipal seat of Kingscote. It was named after Jean-Charles de ...

in the north and the southern coastline extending from

Cape Willoughby Cape Willoughby is a headland in the Australian state of South Australia located on the east end of the Dudley Peninsula on Kangaroo Island in the gazetted locality of Willoughby about south east of the town of Penneshaw. The cape is describe ...

in the east. It is described as "a narrow promontory about 1 mile long" (i.e. ) and that "its SW face slopes to the sea whereas its N and S sides are steep."

Formation, geology & oceanography

Cape du Couedic was formed when the sea reached its present level 7,500 years ago after sea levels started to rise at the start of the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

. The cliff line which includes Cape du Couedic consists of a metamorphic rock belonging to the

Kanmantoo group The Kanmantoo group is a label for the kind of rocks found predominantly along the eastern side of the southern Mount Lofty Ranges, including Fleurieu Peninsula and Kangaroo Island. Examples of where they are visible at the surface include severa ...

bedrock called Middleton Sandstone. The water adjoining Cape du Couedic drops to depths ranging between to at the base of its cliff face. Cape de Couedic

Cape du Couedic is one of twenty geological features on Kangaroo Island that have been listed as a geological monument by the

Geological Society of Australia The Geological Society of Australia (GSA) was established as a non-profit organisation in 1952 to promote, advance and support earth sciences in Australia. The founding chairperson was Edwin Sherbon Hills. William Rowan Browne was a founder of t ...

History

Aboriginal use

Aboriginal sites have been identified by the

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultur ...

at Cape du Couedic. As of 1999,

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...

of material recovered via archaeological excavation from sites at Cape du Couedic and Rocky River suggest Aboriginal presence in the western end of Kangaroo Island from approximately 7,500 years BP to as recent as 350–400 years BP.

European discovery

Cape du Couedic was named in January 1803 by the Baudin expedition of 1800-03 in the memory of Charles Louis Chevalier du Couëdic de Kergoualer (1740–1780), a French naval officer, who commanded the frigate ''La Surveilante'' and who died in 1780 as the result of wounds received in the action of 6 October 1779 against HMS ''Quebec''.

Navigation aid

The loss of both '' Loch Vennachar'' and '' Loch Sloy'' convinced the Marine Board of South Australia to argue for the bringing forward of a plan that it recommended in 1902 to build a lighthouse at Cape du Couedic. Its view was that the loss of both ships could have been avoided if a lighthouse had been operating at Cape du Couedic. Construction commenced in 1907 and the light was officially lit on 27 June 1909.

Protected area status

Cape du Couedic is currently located within the protected area known as the

. As of 2012, the waters surrounding its shores are part of a combined restricted access and sanctuary zone located within the boundaries of the Western Kangaroo Island Marine Park.

Climate

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cape Du Couedic d