Turned up to snap a few shots at Pipe over lunch, only to see a big ass grader flattening the dunes and pushing the sand down the beach towards the waters edge.
Went and chatted to the nice gentleman from the Parks Dept who's managing the process to find out what was going on. Turns out the Parks guys don't really manage the beach normally, but they had some extra coin left in their budget and decided to help out - nice one guys! Anyhow, what they're up to is to try maintain some of the sand on the beach. What happens is when the east howls it pushes up all the sand against the boardwalk, and then over it onto the car park. This sand is then lost to the beach.
Thus the plan is to try keep pushing back the sand-dunes that build up every few months, so that it hopefully limits the sand that gets "lost". Problem is these days is that there is very little back beach area. What used to be able to happen in the old days was that sand would get pushed up the beach in the onshores, build up into dunes, and then get blown back onto the beach and into the sea with the offshores. Hassle nowadays is that there isn't the space anymore for this back and fro movement.
Also on the cards are more of those geotextile bags between the 2 viewing decks, as well as towards the Lifesaving clubhouse. These will be laid out in a curved manner so as not to exacerbate erosion and undercutting.
So, before anyone gets the helling with the ou's for flattening the dunes, there's method in the madness! Plus, who knows, might get some interesting banks out at Pipe cos of all the extra sand near the waterline that'll get dragged into the line-up on the high tide!
Dirk Erasmus sent in this short clip of the grader doing it's thing.