WESTERN COVE HISTORY

2022-2023  Page 8


2022 — CLIMATE COUNCIL REPORT
In May 2022 Australia's Climate Council released the report Uninsurable Nation: Australia's  Most Climate- Vulnerable Places.

The report estimates the risks of properties throughout Australia suffering "annual damage costs from extreme weather and climate change that make them effectively uninsurable by 2030."

It says that 21 of 281 properties (7.47%) at Nepean Bay are at medium to high risk of becoming uninsurable by 2030.


WESTERN COVE'S OLDEST RESIDENT

The oldest resident at Western Cove, who turned 90 in January this year (2022), could be Ron Ward.

He moved to Western Cove in 1986 after purchasing a house built in the early 1970s.



Ron used to be a fisherman working near Port Victoria and Port Augusta. Fishing led to an interest in meteorology including weather prediction and reading the publications of the Bureau of Meteorology.

He still records the rainfall at Western Cove with a rain guage, and notices changes in the seasonal wind patterns. "The greatest rainfall I measured was 62 millimetres," he said. "On that day it rained non-stop for 13 hours."

Over the years he could often be seen fishing from Western Cove Beach and when successful would share part of his catch.

Ron attends meetings of the Uniting Church in Kingscote and American River.

He says he was an atheist until the age of 22. Then, one autumn evening he walked to the Port Augusta Methodist Church where an "incoherent", "nervous" layman from Wilmington preached and "invited people to come to the communion rail to give themselves to Christ." This at the time meant nothing to Ron. Nevertheless, he bowed his head and, "I  felt I was in the midst of the holiness of God." With three others he went forward to the front of the church.

Ron has four adult children living in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide, and ten grandchildren.



2023
More new houses have been built and Western Cove now has about 60 houses. Some new houses function as holiday homes but others have permanent residents.
A series of high tides in June and July (2023) eroded much of the shore line above the beach. The following photo shows an example:





Meet Stephen. He's fossicking for money and other valuables with his metal detector on Western Cove Beach.

People first lived at Western Cove in the 1860s and this allows 160 years for items to be lost or washed up by the waves.
His finds include 2-shilling coins, sixpences and pennies. But most findings consist of bits of metal, mainly bottle tops. He says that other people elsewhere have found valuable items including gold rings. But such finds are very rare.

The metal detector can detect metal objects up to a depth of 60cm. Therefore if you take up this pastime you'll also need a spade.

The words "fossick" and "fossicking" are Australian english and not listed in the (American) Funk & Wagnalls Dictionary. Chambers Dictionary defines fossick: "to search about for any kind of profit : to prospect."



July 13 was windy and trees all around Western Cove lost branches.

Two branches came down near where I was staying — the pictured one about 20cm thick. A much bigger branch perhaps weighing several tons crashed down nearby and damaged a shed.
It's not something that anyone would want to have fall on their head. The odds of death in Australia by falling trees or branches are about 1 person in 10 million per year. In the USA the risks are greater, about 100 deaths per year.

A walk in the Conservation Park reveals some old, large trees, the lower trunk a metre thick, lying horizontally, torn out by the roots in times past.

Although trees and branches are more likely to fall during a strong wind, the timing is unpredictable. There is usually no obvious damage by termites or fire which might give warning. A small weakness apparently increases with time until falling or breaking off happens suddenly.  Take care.