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A small article in the March 17 issue of this esteemed publication made me nod my head so hard I nearly had whiplash. I’m about as far from a tree hugger as you can get. I don’t sit in the middle of roads, chain myself to various things or protest over a three-eyed, polka-dotted, semi-endangered bog snail.
However, I do appreciate the effort involved and all the hard work entailed, in keeping a coastal area free of predators and rubbish. I also believe in basic decency when it comes to keeping our beaches clean and, honestly, some people seem to think nature is their personal rubbish bin.
The Tawharanui Regional Park is a coastal jewel, especially now that Te Arai has turned into a golf course, and I find it immensely annoying that unthinking riffraff think they can trash the place. I have been surfing Anchor Bay for over a decade and every year, especially over summer, I shake my head in dismay when I rock up for an early morning paddle and encounter the trash and rubbish left behind from the previous day.
It’s not only the food and drink detritus left strewn everywhere including the car park, but often there’s enough clothing, footwear, swimming paraphernalia and hats to start an Op Shop. And then there’s the toilet and changing block. A lot of good money was spent on that construction and to see it trashed weekend after weekend is appalling. At times it looks like people have been bathing in the sinks, and lord knows what is going through someone’s mind when they think a sanitary disposal bin is a rubbish receptacle. It beggars belief.
Now, I’ll admit, back in the day, getting to Tawharanui wasn’t for the faint-hearted. You had to endure 12 kilometres of bone-rattling, twisty gravel road before arriving at Anchor Bay, where your only restroom option was a long-drop toilet that had been baking in the sun all day. That natural deterrent kept out all but the most determined visitors.
These days, if you’re not at the beach by 9am, you’re parking in a sheep field about 800 metres from the paved car park. When you finally get to the steps leading up to the grass, you then have to navigate a Third World-esque city made up of tents, domes and gazebo things. Why you’d want to bring your house to the beach is beyond me.
I do laugh though, when I watch some poor bloke attempting to drag a flimsy-wheeled trolley full of beach supplies through soft sand, his optimism fading with every agonising step. So, in the immortal words of Joni Mitchell, “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone, they paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
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