Sandy story

Well, as I predicted in my blog the other day, nature was inhaling during the brief respite we had from the wind, and now she is exhaling like a student at a Qi Gong breathing class. Sand is blowing from the beaches of the Peninsula to form new beaches in places no one ever thought the beach would reach.

Before the advent of settlements in the Fish Hoek valley, where the natural to and fro movement of the dunes according to the prevailing seasons was unhindered, a strandloper gathering shellfish might have been irritated by the stinging sand on his legs, but would have accepted it for what it was. Now that we have built railway lines and roads across the broad expanse of shifting sand, we have altered the free flow forever. It is not unknown for sand to reach as far as the Main Road through Fish Hoek or for the railway line to be completely covered after a good blow.

In Hout Bay, the dunes are reclaiming buildings which have been erected too close to the beach and even the round around the harbour would be reclaimed in only a few years if the sand wasn't regularly taken back to the beach in a truck. This beach supplied the sand for the dunes which stretched up the mountainside and over to Sandy Bay, returning with the north west gales of winter. All of this has been covered in townhouses and high density housing. Those unfortunate enough to live in this natural path of dune formation must spit grit most of the time and wonder why they are living there!

A visit to the local museum of the history of the valley will show cars being pushed through deep drift sands in the early 20th century before roads were built or 4x4s invented. How ironic that we needed the 4x4s before the roads existed, and now that we have smooth tarred roads, we should be driving the little thin-tyred cars of those early days, but 4x4s predominate, most of which have never seen a dirt track, let alone been bogged down in drift sand. We seem to have got it all the wrong way round.