The beach café and associated buildings were destroyed in a 1949 cyclone, and that finally put an end to development on the sand. Gradually the retaining wall was extended south along the entire foreshore, and of course it has been redeveloped a number of times since 1949.

Historical photographs are particularly useful to track environmental change in coastal areas, especially in places that have been used for recreational purposes, such as beaches, rivers and creeks. Generations of images survive, most taken purely for pleasure, from which biophysical baseline data can derived. Most of us choose to live by the coast, so these photographs also document our ongoing relationship with Australia’s most heavily populated environment. They allow us to map the cultural meanings’ we invest in our local natural environment.