Around one of the Great Ocean Road's many picturesque bends, Wye River sits low on the edge of the sea.
It's a fleeting presence on the famously long and winding journey, made up of a pub, a cafe, a caravan park, the river itself and of course, the beach.
There's also the Wye River Surf Life Saving Club, a prerequisite for any locale on Victoria's Surf Coast.
For the locals, who only number in the double digits, and the dedicated holidaymakers who have spent their summers there for decades, it's a slice of paradise — a small hamlet of seclusion and community on the popular tourist drive.
For a long time, its biggest threat has been bushfire, but now it's most at risk from the exact opposite force of nature — water.
"There were periods where we were losing a couple of feet of sand a day, so everyone was quite emotional," said Marty McIntosh, president of the Wye River Surf Life Saving Club (SLSC).
Following a severe storm in January, the river changed direction, sending water gushing along the beach towards the club and rapidly eroding the coastline where the building is perched.
Mr McIntosh said he raised concerns with authorities in February, but for months, the only thing that was done was shuffling sand around the beach in a bid to bolster the coastline.
It washed away almost as soon as it was moved.
Locals watched helplessly as decades-old trees that were holding the dunes together were swept out to sea, taking with them 15 metres of sand and the $150,000 disability access ramp to the club.
The water that was so frequently admired and enjoyed was destroying their pocket of seaside bliss.
"The foreshore caravan park was about to be inundated and there didn't seem to be anyone noticing," Mr McIntosh said.
Authorities 'way too slow' to act
Coastal erosion has long loomed large in the minds of locals and councils along the Great Ocean Road, but climate change is accelerating the problem.
That creates a challenge both in practicality, in trying to stop Mother Nature, but also in governance.
Mr McIntosh said while he was getting the runaround between the Victorian government's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, the Corangamite Catchment Management Authority and the Great Ocean Road Coast and Parks Authority (GORCAPA), he was also asking desperate residents not to try to help with their own makeshift fixes.
"We were trying to trust the process we were afforded but when you're losing two feet of sand a day and trees are falling in, it's really hard to watch," he said.
"It was all way too slow ... if something similar happened again, I don't have the confidence GORCAPA could act swiftly enough to preserve the assets."
By the time they finally had a meeting with GORCAPA in June, when the authority had secured a consultant, the club had already lost its ramp.
"A lot of sausages have to be sold to pay for a $150,000 ramp. That's community money going in, and a lot of community hours will have to go in to ensure we can have disability access again," Mr McIntosh said.
Eventually, the three authorities brought in sandbags which fixed the problem in a couple of days, making it all the more frustrating for those who had watched the damage accumulate for months.
"I was staggered to find out they didn't have any sandbags on hand," said Juliet Le Feuvre, who has holidayed at Wye River for 35 consecutive years.
"They manage hundreds of kilometres of coastline, this is happening all of the place, it was quite amazing," she said.
Wye River Separation Creek Community Association president Greg Hocking said the lack of response was "ridiculous".
"I know GORCAPA is a new organisation and we're the canary in the coal mine, or the sandbag on the beach, but we were the first cab off the rank and their response was dreadful."
The promised consultant's report from GORCAPA still hasn't been delivered, 10 months after the club raised the issue, and five months since the consultant was appointed.
Speed of response 'a priority'
GORCAPA receives no government funding to operate and relies on the caravan parks and leases dotted along the coastline for its work.
The organisation was created in its current form in December 2020 when two other organisations amalgamated.
Jodie Sizer was appointed to the role of chief executive of GORCAPA three months ago and she said looking at the options on how to deal with the Wye River situation "took some time".
"Speed of response is a really important priority for us," Ms Sizer said.
She said GORCAPA would pay for a replacement disability ramp for the club and conceded there should have been sandbags immediately available — an issue she said had since been fixed.
The authority has been given extra powers under the Great Ocean Road and Environs Protections Act, which recently passed through the Victorian parliament.
It gives the authority power in stages over the next three years, but Ms Sizer said their capacity to respond had already been significantly boosted.
"It's an exciting time for the region with the introduction of us as a dedicated authority here to care for the coast and parks," she said.
"It will give us a long-term approach and access to sustainable funding so we can respond faster and plan better for the future."
