Friends of Patiti Point

Patiti Point [44°25′S 171°16′E] is a small promontary immediately to the south of Timaru. A reef breaks the seas, and provides safe passage for boats which in the past landed about where the Timaru Creek outfall pipe is today. In those days the Hine te Kura stream spilled out here, and it was a gathering place for Maori fishing parties and for early shore whalers. By 1875 Peeress Town was established, a small community where settlers were housed temporarily on arrival, and which later fell into disrepute and was demolished. For a long while the land around was unkempt, littered with unsightly junk, but gradually the area is being improved. In recent times Timaru District Council have enhanced the landscape with plantings as a token gesture to the all-but-forgotten Timaru Coastal Strategy, and the people of the town come down here for recreation. Tourist camper vans sometimes park up for a night, and in spring and autumn the sunrises can be spectacular. In an understated way it is quite a special place, well worth a visit.

We’re not sure if the Timaru ratepayers would be aware that Prime Port plan a second milk store. It would be so big that it would extend from the existing milk store right down to the old block works abutment, and would completely dominate the foreshore. Anyway, the test pits dug two weeks ago were exploratory to check out the foundations. The two test pits shown in the photograph mark the southern-most footings. Presumably the fence with the signs saying ‘no access’ will be quite a bit south of that again. Why is it that our council are so arrogant that they think projects of this scale can win approval without public consultation? Or do they keep these things quiet hoping to advance them to the point of no return before we find out? Legally Prime Port may be within their rights, but is it not ill-timed with milk prices at a twenty-year low, with the big container ships gone, with a tug we don’t need still to be paid for, with the first store far from full, and with large vacant sections of the port industrial zone unconsolidated and under-utilised? The Port Company returned a marginal profit this year, but next year isn’t going to look so good. Unless of course they can do some clever stuff with utilisation of the land. Is it that we actually need this shed? Or is it simply property speculation at a time when most people have the sense to be tightening their belts, instead of sticking their necks out?

  A rough computer sketch showing the scale of the proposed structure.

High tides, high seas, but a not particularly low barometer caused exciting conditions at Patiti Point this July. Teenagers played chicken with the waves as they broke and swirled around the outfall pipe. Conditions like this are rare, but seem to be on the increase according to a number of local observers.

Today the developer withdrew the “Application for land use consent No.6739 proposed Betts Tribute Centre” adjacent to Patiti Point. Friends of Patiti Point are very relieved to hear this news, because for the time being at least the threat of an unwanted development has been removed. People who love the area should stay alert to the fact that this piece of land will possibly now be offered on the open market, and somebody may buy it, and they too may want to develop it in ways that are not appropriate. Meanwhile, we can relax, and enjoy!

An April 2008 archaelogical assessment prepared by Rosie Geary Nichol and Katherine Watson for Grant Mitchell Design and Associates recognises the possible significance of the Patiti Point site.

Note that the report is not referring to the adjacent Patiti Point Reserve, but to the flat paddock at approximately sea level that was the site of the proposed development. The report makes interesting reading, and most certainly does not dismiss the site in the way that TDC and the developer had. Points of particular interest in the report include:

• “the site appealed to successive groups”
• “the section has the potential to be rich in archaelogical material”
• “the proposal to develop…may destroy…an archaelogical site”
• “it is illegal to destroy, damage or modify an archaelogical site etc.”

If you want to read the full report enquire at TDC Planning Office.

Friends of Patiti Point wish to thank Jeff Elston for valuable preliminary work he did in this regard, drawing everybody’s attention to the significance of the site.

This was the sight that greeted early morning visitors to Patiti Point May 1st. The developer put the rocks there the night before, claiming he was only blocking off “his property”. In the sober light of day the barricade looked a bit pathetic, and it was soon removed.

Nothing special about today: 2.1 m tide; barometer 1010; moderate swell from the south. But look where the sea got to at high tide!

The NZ Govt document Coastal Hazards and Climate Change: A guidance manual for local government in New Zealand warns of the following impacts on New Zealand’s coastal areas due to accelerating sea-level rise:

• increased coastal erosion in some areas. Parts of the coastline that have historically been eroding may experience
• increased erosion trends; other areas that may have been relatively stable may begin to erode;
• permanent high-tide inundation of very low-lying margins that may at present experience only episodic inundation;
• episodic sea flooding of higher coastal and estuarine margins;
• drainage problems in adjacent low-lying areas, especially where gravity is relied on;
• increased rates and frequency of episodic wave run-up and overtopping of both natural and man-made coastal defences.

The manual continues by warning about the increased hazard created by the removal of coastal vegetation, and risks associated with storm surge, “where adverse winds and low barometric pressure produced by storms temporarily elevate the ocean level well above the predicted tide level” and wave run-up which is, “treated separately from storm-tide level because it varies widely along the coast, even in the same locality, due to differences in shoreline steepness and type of natural or artificial coastal barrier.”

People who frequent South Beach near Patiti Point will tell you that the wave patterns and the shoreline steepness change from day to day in this locality, and that it is an increasingly common occurrence for the waves to roll right up the beach and fill pools behind the main wall of shingle.

Good weather prevailing throughout this period meant the high tides passed off without incident. You can see where the sea gets to by spotting seaweed in the lower carpark at Patiti Point. This photo was taken at 6pm on April 9th with a 2.4 m tide and a high barometer. The sea was calm with a moderate swell which surfers made the most of in the last of the day’s sunshine.

Christmas Day 2007 Tangaroa gently made his presence felt along South Beach.

High water was about 5pm with a height of 2.4 metres and only gulls were around to witness the sea creep up to the Timaru Creek outfall pipe. The barometer was low, around 996 looking at the isobaric chart for 6pm.

It’s a warning of things to come, because there was a flat calm, and very little lift in the sea.

An article on NIWA’s site is quite conservative about rises in sea level due to global warming, pointing out that they are masked by the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and by El Nino events. By contrast, an article in National Geographic dated 2004 predicted catastrophic rises in sea level in the event that Greenland’s Ice Shelf melts. Since then most of us have become familiar with video from Greenland showing the Ice Shelf melting. On National Radio Christmas Eve Grant Redvers, an environmental scientist aboard the research vessel Tara navigating near to the North Pole, pointed out that the melting of ice removes large areas of reflective surface further accelerating global warming. In a later post I will look more closely at the exact line taken by the 50-year and 100-year hazard lines.

Tuesday 11th December Jeff Elston, Pam Booth, Ian Waite and Sue Lowe attended a council meeting, and Jeff presented some facts about the historical significance of several sites contained in an area from Coupland’s building in the north to the lagoon at Otipua in the south. From north to south: a whalers lookout; the original government landing services site; the place (at the bottom of Queen Street) where Bishop Selwyn held the first ever divine service in South Canterbury; the Hine te Kura stream; the Hine te Kura encampment; Wellers whaling station 1838-1845; Peeress Town 1874-1888; an archeological site at Patiti Point Reserve itself; and the Tipua lagoon where the remains of a giant were found. Jeff gave a lucid account, painting a picture of an area of considerable historical significance, his opinion well-supported with documentation. The Historic Places Trust requirements are all in evidence: aesthetic, archaeological, cultural, historical, spiritual, and traditional qualities. This may be a place of sacred significance to Maori. There were no questions, and each of the councilors received a package for their later perusal.