Journalist: Fowlers Bay on South Australia's wild West Coast is an isolated tourist and
fishing village that's grappling encroaching sand dunes.
And believe it or not, the historic part of this town is already completely buried.
Robyn Wallace: I always wanted to live on the ocean.
So, a few years ago my husband and I decided the only way we can really do that was to
actually buy a business and so that's what's brought us all the way out here, we purchased
the caravan park and kiosk, four and a half years ago.
Journalist: Fowlers Bay has experienced some extreme weather events, and what locals will
tell you, will blow you away.
Lorrayne Balharry: We do have some very strong wind events in Fowlers Bay, and I have seen
the conditions where the jetty has been completely obliterated by the sand – whiteout.
Walking up into the sand hills, the sand will be drifting, a metre and just permeates the
air, the sand will plume from the tops of the dunes and fill out gutters and cover our
verandas and come in through the ventilators into our houses.
The sandhills have continued to move steadily towards the re-routed road.
So, one wonders when they will need to re-route the second round.
Robyn Wallace: Kent town was a couple of kilometres away from the present township, but people
are fascinated by the fact that there are buildings, completely buried in the sand dunes
out there and I guess it could happen to us if things do change significantly.
Leonard Hardy: I remember standing on chimneys on Kent Town there was three stone chimneys
there.
Back in the 70s they were exposed, I remember standing on the chimneys back then.
Robert Sleep: Dunes directly adjacent to the south side of town, they’ve gotten a lot
taller in the last five to 10 years, three times higher than they were 10 years ago,
without question.
This road used to run through probably another 50 or 60 metres and at the end of that road
there was about a 60-meter turnaround.
Fishermen of the day cray fishermen, shark fishermen used to use and park their car for
about eight or 10 days while they went off fishing, but yeah the sands all covered that
now so you could park probably 10 or 15 k’s no worries back in the day and I’m talking
probably 1979, 1980.
Robyn Wallace: Clearly when we bought the park that was something we investigated before
we moved here because they are very close to the town then, you know, we don't want
to, in 10 years time, be unable to resell the business because the sand dunes have begun
to move even closer.
Journalist: It may not look like it but right now I'm on top of the historic part of Fowlers
Bay, which has been fully engulfed by sand dunes, locals don't want any more coastal
instability, but experts say climate change could impact the future of this town,
Professor Patrick Hesp: The CSIRO have estimated that we will see a 30 per cent decline in
rainfall across that region by 2100 or so.
30 per cent decline is really significant in terms of climate change for that area so
we would expect to see possibly a decline in vegetation cover but certainly the greater
aridity will likely mean greater rates of migration of dune fields and potentially greater
activity due to the far less rainfall.
Particularly because that rainfall decline is going to happen in spring.
It's quite possible to stabilise the large slip face, what we call a precipitation ridge
that's around the edge of the dune field, and that's the advancing edge of the dune
field coming into town, so it's quite possible to stabilise that and hold the dunes there,
if it's done well and with native species.
Journalist: Leonard Hardy has taken matters into his own hands to save the town and he
only had to step outside his front door, to get started,
Leonard Hardy: Starlings have been sitting up and the trees, so they’ve propagated
some boobialla trees for us so I’m just digging them up and transferring them to the
sand hills.
Robyn: So our target location is just right here on the left hand side, where you can
see Lenny's already started placing a bit of green waste here just to try and control
the erosion and stabilise the dunes in in the predominant winds that we get here.
Leonard Hardy: We’re doing that because the sand the way it’s going it’s going
to go over the bitumen road going out to Coorabie.
Okay, so I’ve dug up some stuff here this morning.
It was 80 metres away so 10 years ago and now it's only about five meters away so it's
going to go under.
Robyn Wallace: If we do nothing, they will move over that road, and possibly encroach
on some of the houses on that side of town.
Yeah, so it's imperative we start now and keep it up and stabilise those dunes where
they are.
Leonard Hardy: We’ve got to run our own affairs, we’re outside district council
we have no power or no water.
We get our water from the sandhills or simply with the rainwater tanks, so we have to fend
for ourselves.
Robert Sleep: Ah look the locals here, and like all remote living locals they’re a
really resilient group they work together really well.
When there's nobody else that can do it for you, you’ve got to do it for yourself, and
these guys are a really good example of that.
Leonard Hardy: Yeah we all help one another, you have to in a small town, it’s everybody
onboard, that’s how we work, that’s how you achieve something.