Vacant for a reason

Peterbnz, on October 10, said:

Hi Rob, Nice shot, Mate!

Those parrell lines racing towards the horizon & the clouds overhead makes it almost a sepia shot... With the carpark just to your left/behind you, you could almost be anywhere in the world, except the New Brighton Surf Club ramp on the left hand side gives it away.

It may be of interest to you, to know that the sand all comes from our big rivers, with a good part of it from the Waimakariri River, just a few kilometres further up the beach. The beach is continually being rebuilt by the wave action & the fence you can see (the top of in the middle of the photo}, is actually about 3' high! But the sand has blown over it to fill up the gap towards the carpark wall.

Every year several times they remove the sand untill it blown back in. Just a normal, natural process, I'm afraid. This happens all along the beach. Then a big storm hits the area & huge waves wash heaps of stuff away for a while - even to the point of cutting into the sandhills (which you can see a little of in the pic,just past the ramp to the Surf Life Club).

Even the three seagulls on the sand to the left of the fence top & mob in the centre of the pic, with the fog/mist on the sea in the distance - hiding part of the Kaikoura's Mountains way up Pegasus Bay...

I were walking along the beach, heading homewards just a few days ago, Rob.

Cheers from Christchurch!

Rob N_!, on October 19, said:

Well Peter, I've gotta say that's some very interesting info. I had no idea that fence was a fence at all. Lucky for it the sand builds both sides hey so the local government need not replace it 2,5 or 10 times a year! And it wouldn't be wrong to say these are also the Canterbury Plains hey? The sand being from off of them. Glad you picked it as not a sepia. It is made from 3 exposures hence the 3 seaguls and blured cyclist.

Take it easy mate! Cheers!

Peterbnz, on October 24, said:

Hi Rob, Sure can't pick it as being from 3 shots - nice work, Mate!

The reason for the fence along the seaward side of the sandhills is to help stop some of the sand drifting with the prevaling Easterly wind - it picks up the sand & it goes well over the sandhills & into the homes of every house near the beach.

However, you think that the beach sand is from the Canterbury Plains?. Not so, Rob. The sand is actually made up of the rocks that have been washed down from the higher parts of the foothills and Alps & when it gets down the the sea it is already partly or almost fully eroded down to those fine grains of sand..

Of incidental value, Rob, further down the beach we have a bit of land that is called the Spit, at least to the locals. This projection of sand is actually made up entirely of sand that hs been washed down the Waimak River, but it has not been there for that long. About 400 years ago it was not there, according to a information board on the walk by Southshore, as the suburb down there is called.

This area is actually pretty low lying land, & is likely to be one of the places to be be evacuated if there is a tidal wave likely to hit the coast.

After all, much of Christchurch is pretty low lying land, as it was built on an old largely swampy area of the coast. Even my place, some 2.9km away from the beach & only about 2 metres above sealevel...

If a tsunami of 8 metres high were to hit the beach here, I'd be more than paddling my 'tootsies', I can tell you!! We'd be evacuating two thirds of Christchurch I'd reckon.

But even the recent Samoa earthquake did not give a large wave in this part of the Pacific - only about 30 to 40cm in some places, but the people flocked to the beaches. Some don't understand, do they... If it was a metre high a few kilometres of the beaches, it would be a darn sight bigger when it go to the lowtide mark.

Incidently, the area between the 'sand drift fence' & the carpark to the left of the photo had been cleared about 5 or more times since about 1997, when I came back to NZ from overseas. (anybody want 900 tonnes of lightly 'salted sand'?)