A toxic cocktail of speed and too many vehicles is increasingly threatening lives - and the environment - on New Zealand's longest driveable beach.
Kaipara District Councillor David Wills at Mahuta Gap where constant four wheel driving has damaged sand dune vegetation. Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
That's the grim warning from a Kaipara leader who says the problem is worsening.
Tauranga 13-year-old Daisy Fernandez died after being struck by an unregistered motorbike on Ripiro's Glinks Gully on 31 December 2007.
"It's only a matter of time until someone else is killed on Ripiro Beach," Kaipara District Councillor David Wills said.
The west coast's Ripiro Beach runs for 107km from Maunganui Bluff northwest of Dargaville in the north to Pouto Point settlement at the tip of Pouto Peninsula on Kaipara Harbour's northern entrance south of Dargaville. It's the longest driveable beach in New Zealand (Ninety Mile Beach is 88km long).
Hundreds of off-roaders, other four wheel drives, cars, quad bikes and motorbikes are increasingly flocking to the beach - along with ever-growing numbers of people.
A motorbike heads north along Ripiro Beach. Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
The beach is classified as a road. It has a 100 km/h speed limit outside small pockets of 30km/h zones around small settlements along its beach's length. Ripiro Beach's settlements include Manganui Bluff, Omamari, Baylys Beach, Glinks Gully and Pouto Point.
"We have been discovered as a destination for off-roading," said Graeme Ramsey, 25-year Baylys Bach resident and former Kaipara mayor and Northland Regional Council deputy chair.
There were also cars doing drifting at the beach and vehicles of all sorts hooning about.
Manganui Bluff Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
Ramsey said the problem was not being adequately addressed by regulations. Road rules weren't being enforced and stronger policing was required.
"Drivers are exceeding the speed limit which is posing increased safety and environmental risk," Ramsey said.
Police were asked for comment but did not respond.
Ramsey said Covid-19 was adding to the increasingly crowded situation with more and more visitors from Auckland and beyond. This had been happening since lockdown.
More confrontation observed
Big numbers of people were expected this summer as a result of New Zealanders not being able to travel overseas.
"There's increasing confrontation between vehicle users and other beach users," Wills said.
"I have been threatened with physical violence when asking a four-wheel-drive vehicle driving dangerously close to us to slow down as my wife and I walked along the beach."
Wills is calling for a stronger effort to manage Ripiro Beach through more combined work between those with shared responsibility for its management. He's spearheading a new push from KDC, as one of the organisations legally responsible for official beach management, as well as from Northland Regional Council, the Department of Conservation and police.
He said off-roaders from south of Tai Tokerau were increasingly coming to Ripiro Beach in the wake of stronger restrictions at Muriwai on Auckland's west coast. At least eight people have been killed there through four-wheel drive accidents.
Police patrols and covert cameras are among tools that have been used on the beach. Permits are required with speeds reduced to between 30km/hr and 60 km/hr. Permit display and photo identification are required by those driving these beaches.
Important sand dune systems under threat
Internationally-important sand dune systems at Pouto Peninsula's southern tip are among the areas hardest hit by Ripiro Beach off-roaders.
Pouto is the nearest west coast wilderness four-wheel drive opportunity north of Auckland.
Wills said off roaders were driving up the 85-metre sand cliffs to the 1884 Pouto lighthouse and then often through surrounding dunes.
This had led to archaeological and cultural concerns. There were a number of Māori artefacts in this area which were at risk of being damaged.
Six hundred hectares of dunes at the peninsula's tip are among New Zealand's last large-scale remaining pristine dune areas - ranked as of extremely high national and international importance.
Wills said they supported threatened plant and animal species, including nationally and regionally important populations of northern New Zealand dotterel and significant grey duck populations.
Shags dry their wings in the brief moments between four-wheel-drives on Maunganui Bluff at the northern end of Ripiro Beach. Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
'No wilderness left in Auckland" - off road club boss
Silverdale Rodney Off Road Club president Jimmy Kiddie said Aucklanders were increasingly heading to Pouto and driving north along Ripiro Beach.
"There's basically no wilderness left in Auckland. It's basically all houses now," Kiddie said.
Kiddie agreed four-wheel drive and other off-road vehicles were creating problems at Pouto and further north. But he said it was non-club four-wheel drivers creating the problems.
"There are a lot of people with four-wheel drives that don't belong to clubs. They're speeding and doing doughnuts. They've got a four-wheel drive and think they can go anywhere," Kiddie said.
Kiddie said four-wheel drive clubs were keen to look after the wilderness to ensure its future availability.
He wouldn't like to see Pouto closed to four-wheel drives because of the actions of a few.
Wills said issues were being experienced by local residents and landowners at a number of Ripiro Beach settlements.
Major damage to sand dunes and cliffs along the beach's length was a big problem.
Sand dune tracks just south of Baylys Beach lead up to where four-wheel drives have broken through a barrier, erected to stop their access. Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
Off-roaders were using winches to pull out fences and track obstacles put in by landowners to protect their land, he said.
Vehicles were wrecking fragile west coast dune ecosystems along the entire beach length by driving over the dunes. "Vehicles can destroy the plants that help keep the sand dunes strong, killing them with just one drive by," Wills said.
Vehicle tracks were clearly visible in at least half a dozen places along a 10km stretch between Ripiro's Mahuta Gap and Baylys Beach when Northland's Local Democracy reporter visited.
Sand dune damage dwarfs Kaipara District Councillor David Wills at Mahuta Gap. Photo: LDR / Susan Botting
Wills said persistent, repetitive driving on dunes had already killed vegetation in some places. This was creating sand blows as a result, where dunes no longer stabilised by vegetation started to move inland engulfing adjacent farm paddocks as they spilled onto ever-increasing areas across grass.
Healthy dunes provide a constantly replenishing, critical barrier between land and sea. A small area of damaged dune can become a major area of sand blow migrating inland, within two years growing to the size of about one and a half rugby fields.
Ramsey said vehicles, including cars, were driving over toheroa beds, crushing the iconic New Zealand shellfish which lived in the mid-tide zone where many travelled.
"I've seen a person doing doughnuts on top of a toheroa bed. We're worried about our toheroa beds. Toheroa are a taonga for the nation," Ramsey said.
Local Democracy Reporting is a public interest news service supported by RNZ, the News Publishers' Association and NZ on Air.