The Grass That Holds It Together

Look at the thin, unimpressive grass growing on the dune faces, because that grass is the only thing standing between this landscape and chaos.

It is called marram or beach grass, and it does something remarkable: it thrives on being buried. Bury most plants in sand and they die. Bury this one and it grows UP through the new sand and sends out more roots, so the more the wind piles on, the more thoroughly the dune gets stitched together. The root network runs for yards underground.

Which is why the signs matter. A footpath up a dune face kills a strip of that grass. The wind gets into the gap, scoops it out, and you get a blowout — a growing wound that can swallow the dune behind it and, eventually, the forest behind that. There are dunes on this coast actively burying live trees right now, and you can see the dead tops sticking out.

It also means the dunes MOVE. Perched dunes migrate inland over decades, which is why you will pass ghost forests — stands of bare grey trunks standing in sand where a living forest used to be.

So use the boardwalks and the marked routes, not because a ranger will tell you off, but because the dune you are standing on is a slow-motion argument between grass and wind, and your shoes are on the wind's side.