The Mon Repos Flap
We’ve had a huge amount of sand deposited around our break for the last few months. It’s been building steadily, to the extent that, where a few months ago we were forced to glide on our boards over knee-deep water washing over nothing but rocks as far as the eye could see to make it to dry land at the very edge of the dunes and the bush, now there is a 100 metre wide stretch of solid sand separating those dunes from the water. We’re walking at an elevation of at least one-and-a-half metres higher than before, and it’s surreal. At the same time, further down the bay, a huge amount of erosion is undercutting the dunes over there, and there are buildings that are in danger of toppling over the edge. A panic-struck council has ordered a huge sandbagging operation, and where erstwhile there were glorious acres of golden sand carpeted in holiday makers, there is now a wall of sandbags reminiscent of World War I trenches, shoring up a steep escarpment covered in trailing roots and fal