Umina Beach Sand Plains

Umina Beach sits upon a large expanse of sand, in fact many find it ironic that the local houses are built upon sand considering the biblical reference in Mathew 7:24-27 that the foolish man built his house on sand, and “The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash” ¹. To our luck the people who built in Umina Beach have only experienced a great way of life and not been washed away (yet!).

This large expanse of sand is often referred to as the Sand Plain of Umina and Woy Woy (or the Umina-Woy Woy Sandplain) and it traverses from Ocean Beach (Umina) to Woy Woy.  The Umina Beach Sand Plain is considered significant in world terms due to the way it was formed 5000 years ago with a 3.7 Km wide level plain of sand ridges (Thom 1978). This internationally rare feature meant the area was a sort out area for the study of soil and sand deposits. There are studies going back to the 1950’s focused on the soil, these studies also give us a small insight into recent flora on the dunes. For example Burges and Drover’s (1953) work on soil development, done before the extensive suburban development of the 1960s and 70s reported that Banksia Integrifolia (Leptospermum Laevigatum) occurred as a frontal dune community about 90 m (100 yards) wide behind Umina Beach.

Umina-Woy Woy Sandplain – source Payne et al Coastal Sandplain Vegetation at Brisbane Water

The early aerial photos taken of the Umina Beach area clearly show the sand ridges that span from Ocean Beach to Woy Woy.

Paine, R., Wellington, R. & Somerville, M. (2010) Coastal sandplain vegetation at Brisbane Water and Broken Bay – reconstructing the past to plan for the future. Cunninghamia 11, 295–317.