DUNEDIN BEACH

Evening Star, Issue 18256, 21 April 1923, Page 8

DUNEDIN BEACH

WISE WORK BY DOMAIN BOARD. WINDS AND WAVES PLAY THE NAVVY. At various times within tho last twentyfive years tho ocean lias threatened to pierce into St. Hilda and St. Clair. On one occasion it did break through, at a point abreast of the St. Kilda tram terminus, and caused such apprehension that many section-owners sold out at giveaway prices. To-day tho whole seafront seems to be quite safe. The sea does not approach St. Kilda, the previously vulnerable bight near tho St. Clair surfing pavilion has not been attacked for months, a great ridge of sand about 20ft high and a chain and a-half wide forms a continuation of the sandhills apd stretches almost to Lawyer’s Head, and the sea faces of the oncecrumbling sandhills near St. Clair are firmed with marram and lupin. HOW WAS IT DONE ? By coaxing tho ocean instead of defying it, the result being that the breakers, once spiteful and revengeful because of opposition, now advance and retire quite peaceably. By observing how sand naturally accumulates round a slender obstruction such as a tuft of grass or a bit of seaweed, and utilising that principle. An example is lo be found at the beach opposite Tahuna. A breach was threatening—the water was already beginning to eater—when an engineer was called in, and he-recommended that a five-chain embankment of clay be built at a cost of £lO per chain. When this was considered by tho Domain Board its answer was, in effect, “ Thank you, wo will first try a scrub fence.” .Such a fence was put in at a cost of £5. and that was the beginning of a natural change which has made Tahuna permanently secure, that neighborhood being now a fixed barrier of grass, lupin, and pine trees.

The scrub fence has been the originating agent in all tho reclamation. Wonderful, but true, that tho enormous sand ridge now standing as a bulwark and plavground was thus created. Tho Domain Board was wise. It went about its work methodically, hurrying nothing, content to let Nature, that tireless and unpaid worker, do all the labor. See what such a policy lias saved in money. The expenditure of the Domnin Board averages only about £450 a year, yet tho visible results arc far beyond anything that could have been achieved by a scheme of forcing the sea back. As a fact, all the works for fighting the ocean have perished miserably, and thousands of pounds wasted, and sagacious observers now declare that the omy fear for the future is that experts may get in with elaborate schemes and undo what Nature is doing. PLAYGROUNDS AND PARKS. A ‘Star’ reporter went over a portion of the domain yesterday and noted the improvements, first, starting from M. Clair, the action of tho scrub defences. On tlie two westernmost groynes bmul.es of manuka cut at the Peiicliet Bay butts have been fastened to the piles by wornout tramway cables, and between those groynes and the eastern groyne scrub fences have been eroded. These slender catches have caused the sand to accumulate to a height, and even after recent washouts ridges of sand remain as a shelter for women and children, whilst tne general level of the beach is considerably raised, forming a tine playground. Then there is the stretch of pobt-and-wire fencing, about fifteen chains, which runs from Bt. Clair to the path by which people ascend from the beach to the playground and the beginning of Lovers’ Walk. The avowed object of this fence was to stop traffic up and down the sea front ot the sandhills after marram and lupin had been planted with a view to preventing further erosion. This has practically been accomplished, though boys still do a little mischief by tramping trie bills, and it is further noted that the fence acts as an accumulating agency, the wind-blown sand settling about the fence and thus forming a base on which the sandhills are visibly growing. The playground in the hills at the back of tho Forbnry course is a very fine area of about two acres, and close by one sees the spot on. which the St. Clair Tennis Club is to have four courts.

The City Corporation tip sends forth no offensive odor. It is said that it has been found by analysis that only 20 per cent, of the deposit is burnable, also that a destructor would cost £24,000.

An area of an acre and a-hulf a little further to tho east was levelled by tho unemployed, and is, now a good rough-and-ready playground for young footballers.

Lovers’ Walk is in splendid order. It is now proposed to put in a plantation at the side of that walk whore it approaches tho back of the battery. Tho remains of .old groynes arc seen hereabouts —a reli<y of the reclamation by tho board in 1898, when Mr Seddon gave the board £IOO for the purpose. The great sand ridge which here shuts out a sight of the sea has stood for eight years. It is the greatest improvement of late years in and about the city. Finns insignis are growing well in the pure sand on the level space near the end of the St. Kilda tram line, where a space has been reserved for the Women’s Hockey Club. This is where the ocean actually broke in years ago. Back of tho St. Kilda rotunda is a great level park, on a spot that was once a lagoon carrying 3ft ot water at spring tides, now covered with 4ft of sand and always dry. Citizens who take a pride in the city ought to go out and spend half a day in a ramble along tho sea front from l.ahnna to St. Clair. "They will he amazed at the improvements that have been carried out. And it must be remembered that the operations have gone on in tho face of opposition and indifference. Such a visit must induce feelings of thankfulness to tho Domain Board, and those who know what has been the course of events can hardly refrain from specially remembering tho constant work of the board’s chairman, Mr J. H. Hancock, and his able lieutenant in charge, Mr L. Edwards.