Tale of two beaches after monster storm

For surf instructor Jason Eichenberger, the monster storms and king tides that battered the Gold Coast last week were a blessing in disguise.

Jason Eichenberger on the planted dunes at Broadbeach. Picture: Lyndon Mechielsen

For surf instructor Jason Eichenberger, the monster storms and king tides that battered the Gold Coast last week were unexpectedly a blessing in disguise.

Once the dangerous conditions died down, the weather delivered some big surfable waves, and the pounding swell flattened a dangerous ramp of sand on the shoreline at Kurrawa beach, at Broadbeach just south of Surfers Paradise.

“It made the beach 1000 times better; it was actually incredible,” the Go Ride a Wave instructor told The Weekend Australian. “It makes working that much more fun — for us and for our clients.

“We were lucky up here (on the Gold Coast); down in Byron, they got smashed.”

Last week’s storms exposed a tale of two beaches on Australia’s eastern coastline. On the Gold Coast, the council has spent millions of dollars on coastal management, including $1.1m to build a seawall at Kurrawa, $1m a year for dredging of Tallebudgera and Currumbin creeks to replenish sand at Burleigh and Palm Beach, and $13.9m to put more than three million cubic metres of sand back on coast beaches.

Mayor Tom Tate said: “Our beaches took the brunt and held together well. A key reason was the pure volume of sand on our beaches.”

But 100km south at Byron Bay, Main Beach and Clarkes Beach were completely carved away. Trees and dunes were lost. Rocks were exposed, and walkways tumbled. At Byron, unlike on the Gold Coast, the storm scored a “direct hit” and wrought maximum damage.

But some locals are concerned nature’s fury was exacerbated by the approach of the Byron Shire Council, which they say has taken a less interventionist approach to neighbouring local governments.

Beach Restaurant director Ben Kirkwood said the storms were the straw that broke the camel’s back because Clarkes Beach had had severe erosion since the middle of last year.

Jesse Morgan on the devastated Main Beach in Byron Bay. Picture: Natalie Grono

His hugely popular restaurant is in prime position on Crown land, perched on the dunes at Clarkes. After losing 18m of dune in eight weeks earlier this year, the NSW government built a geobag wall to protect the restaurant. Work finished last month.

“If the bags hadn’t been there, just the swells would have finished us off,” Mr Kirkwood said.

The restaurant survived, and is thriving, with business 40 per cent up on last year, even with COVID-19 restrictions in place.

Mr Kirkwood said that while geobags were an excellent temporary solution, the state government needed more long-term erosion planning in Byron Bay. “If you don’t protect the beaches, erosion will get back to the lighthouse; it’ll threaten the million-dollar beach houses,” he said.

Acting Byron Shire general manager Phil Holloway said it was hoped some dune restoration would be funded under the federal government’s natural disaster declaration. He said the council was working on a long-term coastal management plan to be approved and funded by the NSW government.

“The options might be beach nourishment (bringing sand in from elsewhere), or a pumping system to bring sand in from around the cape,” he said.

He said he was hopeful that the movement of the ocean and south-easterlies would move sand that was currently sitting offshore back onto the damaged beaches and restore them.