Pine Forest - Slips Sunshine Bay - post #3

October 2006 the hillside is on the move again. It has been moving, of course, for millions of years. The land shakes and moves. The cover grows, dies, regenerates. We burn the cover off or cut roads and tracks through it. We dig platforms for houses and so on. But yes, it moved again 2006 and suddenly many people said it was the Council's fault! We love to blame someone, anyone, but particularly government bodies. That month had seen over 300 slips around the Wellington area. If we live on hills we are bound to contribute to their demise. But they will erode over time without our intervention.

This particular area has slipped quite often over the last 40 years or so. 1976 (or was it '77?) there was a very substantial rainfall during December. The western Hutt hills literally ran with water, pushing cars off the road below. In Sunshine Bay several significant slips occurred, one bringing down a crib block wall to the bottom of a valley. In 2004 the Pine Forest area began to slip - surprise surprise - without any help from the Council. And it has continued to the present. It has been a dramatic and for some, traumatic over the past 4 years. I am retrospectively doing these posts to give a slightly longer term perspective to the ecological factors than simply the cutting of the forest over a couple of years.

This photo, taken October 2006, is looking south from above Sunshine Bay to the northern ridge between Days Bay and Sunshine Bay.

The position of the cottage that was destroyed earlier (mentioned in a previous post) is labeled.

Top left there was a small stand of beech trees that had grown up with the pines,in their shelter. They died following the demise of the pine forest.

The bigger slip, shown in the centre of the photo, contributed to the destruction of the house below, just above the Marine drive. These slips and other recent ones, started in 2004 - before the Council had done anything. Of course, the valley has been slipping for millenniums - that's why there is a valley there!
This photo is taken from the head of the slip shown in the previous photo. It was taken October 2006 and has grown considerably since then. The house at the bottom of the valley that had a bedroom destroyed has subsequently been removed.

This is the house, October 2006. Some of the large, fallen pine tree trunks that came down with the slip can be seen .


The white house on the right was also damaged and has also been removed.

Decision made to fell the Pine Forest

The Hutt City Council, recently responsible for the forest following over 50 years of management by the Wellington City Council, decided they had to fell the remaining forest. That involved cutting, often in very steep terrain, and removing the trees with a very large double bladed helicopter. The task was time consuming and expensive. Budget and other logistics did not allow the felling to be completed the first year.

With the trees left standing now exposed to much stronger winds the following year saw dozens of them fall in tangled messes. Removal was much more difficult because the very heavy uprooted base of the trees meant that helicopter removal was often not possible.

The first photo here shows some of the pines left on the Sunshine Bay - Mahina Bay ridge. The lack of green needled branches is very apparent.


The second photo shows the same stand of trees with many fallen trunks now lying in a tangled mass.

These photos were taken during October 2006 - some time after felling had stopped.




The helicopter used to take the logs out for processing and sale.

Pines fallen because of 'wet feet'. Sunshine Bay Feb 2004

Wellington's summer of 2003/2004 was very wet. Late February brought a severe storm - rain and wind with a lot of damage around the Wellington area. Reserve land above Sunshine Bay and the northern end of Days Bay had been planted in Pines during the 1930s.

High above the northerly valley in Sunshine Bay some of these pines fell over with 'wet feet'. They were not 'windfalls'. The southerly gale raging at that time did not reach this part of the pine forest. The pines had originally been planted very close together and had had little management. I understand that some thinning or selective logging was under taken at the southern end of the forest during 1949. They grew tall and dropped dying branched as they grew. By 2004 they had very little green branch with which to provide essential nutrients and subsequently also had very small roots systems. They were potentially unstable, particularly in wet, sodden ground and many of them had quite a lean to the west (down hill side). They simply began to fall over because of their now inherent instability in the very wet conditions.

These two photos show the first pines fallen. Further south, on the edge of the forest, the southerly wind did have an added effect - dozens of unstable strees fell and land began to slip in the area, taking out a samll bach and injuring the occupant when the landslide breached the wall of the room where he was sitting at his desk.

Borough matters not

There was a mayor, now dead and gone

Who many thought should have a gong.

Then one day to the borough came

A man who had so little shame.

He wanted much to be town clerk

But from his past he could not depart.

Wiley man, he knew the mayor

Also had misdeeds that brought despair.

Their pasts, they agreed, would forever remain

Each others secret so both would gain.

The mayor departed without his gong

The man, he worked and sang his song.

Many an oldie had their garden done

The hand of the new mayor he had won.

But when the residents complained

That the town clerk had mucked up again

And to the new mayor went with tales

She simply promised, smiled, but no betrayls.

Then election time it came

And a new would-be-mayor took the reign.

He promised to keep the borough free

Of interference from the powers that be.

But he had not reckoned upon wiser counsel

That he discovered would dispatch his council.

He left in a hurry for he could not curry

The favour of all of those who were in a flurry.

And then the day came when the borough went

To its great big neighbour, its day spent.

The town clerk too, until it transpired

He was now only a minion and retired.

He went over the hill where the grass grew green

At least for the town clerk, for he had seen

A widow with a bigger pile

And the old new mayor became a file.

She left with hurt and her poetry skills

While the erstwhile town clerk enjoyed his frills.

Then suddenly he became quite sickly

And judgement day came all too quickly.

There is no moral to this story

Merely opportunity to be observatory.

Another Eastbourne house destroyed by hillside slip.

I've been a bit of a weekend builder much of my life. Mostly been building somewhere on the hillside I still live on. The first house I built, that we named 'Paripari', was close to the waterfront in Sunshine Bay. A rather ambitious project that I undertook in my spare time. I started that in
1969. Finished it about 1974 and the family lived in it for only about two years before moving to
the old Hutt County Council roadman's cottage just north along the road. Sold Paripari after a while and yesterday probably saw the last day it will be lived in by anybody when a hillside slip came down on top of it.

One large rock penetrated the roof, landing in the laundry. The current owners escaped about 5.30 am, unhurt.

Emergency services closed the road as the hillside continued to tumble down making passage along the road potentially dangerous as rocks bounced over the roof of the house.

The slip was interesting as much of the material appeared quite dry although the weeks prior to the slip have been very wet. It was loose, friable, light clay and broken rock.

The area where the house was positioned had initially been formed as a quarry for material to upgrade the marine drive to Eastbourne sometime in the early to mid 1900's. Possibly blasting the hillside to quarry that material had left some of the under-lying rock shattered.

One very large outcrop above the house has been prominent for some years. With loose material having slipped away from around the large rock it appeared as though it could come down at any time and the decision was made by City council engineers to loosen it manually so as to make the area safer. Abseilers were called in and the following photos show them in action.






With the big rock broken up the abseilers worked to shift other loose material before climbing off the slip face. Down below, the space at the rear of the house has partially filled up - especially in the south east corner - and slip material was spilling or bouncing onto the roof.


Engineers, insurers, owners all have to consult over the viability of the property being habitable again. Most likely the house will be written off, becasuse of uncertainty over the stability of the hillside above the house. A sad end for the owners, and Eastbourne people generally as we come to acknowledge the vulnerability of our steep hillside to slippage.

Head down

Nothing much to say - just waving the flag in between rather busy times. Lots of other computer work, some tidying in the small orchard where a few trees are just coming into flower. The area has been neglected over the last three years as I built a new house.

We've had more than our share of rain over the last month or so and last night it produced a small lahar down the usually dry stream bed that runs through the gully next the house. On reaching the bottom of the hill it blocked the storm water pipe under the main marine drive to Eastbourne.

All the photos below are of Wellington harbour - views from my deck and similar to what one sees when using our visitor accommodation ( Check out http://www.holidayhouses.co.nz/properties/4439.asp ). I've almost finished building the house on our steep, 30 deg, hillside. Still a bit to do but it waits while my over-stretched shoulder rests. And I learn to use my left hand for computer mouse activity. Doing well actually.