Tourist town despairs as 'hungry' ocean swallows beach

Washed away: Rocks and rusting steel are all that now remains of the once beautiful sandy beach at Kingscliff. Photo: Michael Bryant

Residents of Kingscliff have compared the ocean to a "ravenous beast" slowly devouring their coastal town.
In the past two weeks the beach and foreshore of Kingscliff, 15 minutes from the Gold Coast in northern New South Wales, has been eroded by a rising tide.
The parkland has joined the beach and crumbled into the ocean as the pandanus and casuarina trees that once lined the foreshore were uprooted and dragged out to sea.

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Kingscliff in 2008 before erosion destroyed the beach. Photo: Michael Bryant

On Saturday, another 15 metres of sand and soil disappeared into the water, exposing the rock wall protecting the Kingscliff Surf Club.
The relentless ocean now threatens to claim the Kingscliff Beach Holiday Park, where the council was forced to relocate seven cabins at risk of collapsing into the sea last week.
Towering banks of large sandbags are currently the town's only defence against the tide.

A 2009 photo of waves undermining the Kingscliff breakwall. Photo: Michael Bryant

The dramatic collapse of the beach and foreshore has unfolded before the eyes of radio operator Helena Sweeney in the Volunteer Coast Guard tower.
"It's horrendous," she said.
"The ocean has taken huge gouges out of the coastline.

"It came to a stage where we thought [our tower] would be surrounded by a moat."
It is not the first time Kingscliff has been plagued by erosion.
Tweed Shire Council carried out $600,000 in emergency works to restore the beach in March this year ahead of the New South Wales Surf Life Saving Championships.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/environment/climate-change/tourist-town-despairs-as-hungry-ocean-swallows-beach-20110725-1hwtj.html#ixzz1TBOoh2tG