Keep that dang road dirty!

Ain’t a lot of places around the NSW coastline that haven’t felt the bite of local councils and their incessant need to pave, rezone and demolish.

For whatever reason, this desire for what’s called progress has eaten up all those classic coastal towns on the NSW coastline.

One of two hold-outs has been Crescent Head, five hours-ish north of Sydney. Crescent, maybe you know, is a soft point that thrills long boarders and holidaymakers. Oh it’s pretty as anything but it’s the back beaches you’d come to these parts for.

Vaughan Blakey, commentator, Goons of Doom minstrel, sometime creative artist for Rip Curl, former editor of Waves and SW, has a joint round those parts. (Click here and have a swish around. It looks like a little something El Chapo would build for retirement. You can rent too!)

And he called yesterday to tell me that Crescent and surrounds “are in the midst of being steamrolled by a Kempsey Council decision to push ahead with the sealing of a stretch of dirt road that leads from Crescent to Lime Burner’s Creek National Park, despite having previously promised to leave the area pristine and untouched.”

There’s a Say No to Tar rally at Crescent this Sunday and if you’re around, swing on by.

As reported by the Echo, a local news organ.

Beautiful coastlines, no traffic jams, dirt roads and that ephemeral ‘character’ note that is slowly being beaten out of Byron Shire and northern NSW still remains at Crescent Head in Kempsey Shire and it is something that local residents think is worth fighting for.

Locals are rallying together this Sunday January 13 at 8.30am to highlight their opposition to the tarring of Point Plomer Road that takes people out to the headland at Limeburners Creek National Park.   

‘This is one of the last two places on the NSW coast that has a dirt road leading to the headland,’ said Amy Bruce from the Crescent Head Ratepayers and Residents Association (CHRRA).

‘It’s incredibly beautiful, and so far relatively unspoiled. We’re worried that the developers are ready to pounce. We see the tarring of the road as a means of opening up the area for rezoning and development.’

The tarring of the road was previously rejected in 2003 when the region’s rich heritage and significant Aboriginal sites were identified and residents and Indigenous elders are saying that the council has made the decision to tar with no consultation.

Local Aboriginal elder James Dungay decided to hand back his Certificate of Appreciation for his personal contribution to Wigay Cultural Park, presented to him by Kempsey Shire Council mayor (KSC) in 2012 over the lack of consultation. However, when he tried to make a time to hand his certificate back to the mayor at the council meeting on December 18 he was told by staff that he could hand it back over the counter at the council office.

‘I have lost faith with Council,’ said Mr Dungay.

That little wave we shot the Twenty softboard short at with Chippa Wilson? It used to be the dreamiest drive in before the council-developers built thousands of oversized houses with their bleak little aluminium windows and unlovable orientation away from light and cross-breezes.

Build the bitumen road and, pretty soon, the land’s gonna be sub-divided and unlovely houses will sprout like weeds after a good summer rain.

Go! This Sunday etc.

Makes small, though not insignificant, profit.

Three months ago, it was reported that Julian Wilson had put his award-winning beachfront house on the market, a gorgeous hacienda he’d bought three years earlier for $A3.52 million.

It is the sort of wood-and-concrete build that fills me with that old architecture of happiness. I imagine, one day, when I’m riddled with cancer and want to see out my diminishing hours by a swimming pool, a place to die to the sound of kookaburras laughing and cicadas snapping their wings, this is the sorta joint I’ll rent out.

Of course, any words I might’ve constructed for 31 Pelican Street, Peregian Beach, in the initial story could be no match for the real estate copywriter whose descriptions included,

“A master class in coastal luxe.”

“Banks of louver windows and stacking doors allow you to feel as though you live on top of the world.”

“The star of the home is the open-plan living space where a wall of glass completely retracts to perfectly frame the breathtaking views. You will want to step outside onto the sunny poolside terrace and take in that exceptional panoramic vista.”

And so on.

Did it sell?

Oh yes it did.

One week after hitting the market one dick-winger came in with a figure “north of four million dollars,” according to the real estate agent, although the actual figure is confidential.

Julian now lives in his wife Ashley’s hometown of Newcastle, which brings her closer to family and perennial world-title chaser Julian nearer to pals Ryan Callinan and Craig Anderson.