BYO sand to Yamba's Main Beach
PEOPLE wanting to feel the sand between their toes on Yamba's Main Beach at the moment are just about out of luck with the normally picturesque shore looking more like a rock garden than sandy coastline.
Recent weather events including big seas and king tides have all but stripped the sand from the beach, exposing large areas of boulders, rock and gravel.
While it may look a bit ugly at the moment, council deputy general manager Rob Donges said fortunately no permanent damage had been done and he was confident the sand would eventually return.
"The sand is very, very low at the moment and it's probably - as usual - sitting offshore somewhere just waiting for the right conditions to bring it back up onto the beach," Mr Donges said.
"It goes fast, then comes back slowly but it has always come back in the past so there's no reason why it shouldn't come back again this time."
Meanwhile, Mr Donges said early plans were underway to construct a new seawall at Main Beach to help protect the area from coastal erosion and severe weather events.
"We were down at Main Beach with some consultants last week with an excavator - we're designing a new seawall to go from the pool to past the clubhouse," he said.
"The consultants needed to dig a series of holes on the beach in order to find out what's under the sand - basically you've got half a metre of sand, then a gravel layer, boulders then a clay layer which is good news because we can possibly build the wall on that clay layer."
Mr Donges said it was too early to tell when the project would start.
"At the moment we're only engaged - us and the State Government - to get a design done for it - once we've got the design done, we can start looking at options for the wall to be funded." he said.
