This report just in:
Locals are concerned about the poolution washing up on the shore and affecting the wildlife.. "Like, it's so kn hard getting traction on the quadbike with that sh!t lying about. Hand us another EB maaate.. I need to go see a man about a dog." said Barry B. Ogun as he nonchalantly stubbed out his Winnie butt and headed over the dunes.
Just did a couple of calculations regarding poo and people at Wedge over the Easter period
Estimated population for easter would be around 2000 people, if everyone had 2 dumps a day resulting in about a kilo of poo from each person times 4 days that results in about 8 tons of poo.
The water table is less than a metre from the surface and runs east to west, toward the ocean.
When the first rains come the water table rises to the surface resulting in a seasonally inundated wetland bringing up all that poo.
Lots of people have bores and use the water for showers and washing and most dunnies are a hole in the ground.
Wedge......Naturally......
why are we focusing on the poo just at wedge. what about all those surfers and fisherman that lay cables at sea . Seeing as it floats and is apparently bad for the environment what will be done about the average of a kilo of poo a surfer deposits in the ocean each day over the easter weekend ?
Thats alot more than would have been squeezed out at wedge
)
beautiful place by the look of the photo's.
perfect for a shack. Reminds me of about 20-30 places along the SA coastline, full of shacks.
Some of them became towns and have a post office others, built on private land, pay an annual lease and sign up for 15-20 years.
These are great places and should be preserved, The Australian coastline is huge and can surely afford a few hundred of these shack-towns.
They have many downsides, but really do add to the Australian experience.
Improved access? i know the road in is nearly complete and i hate it, like some have said the beauty of wedge is the fact that if you don't have a 4wd, or simple 4wd'ing knowledge (which many wouldn't) u can't get there.
so they're putting in a nice sealed road for tom dick harry and their brothers and mates and dogs.
-where will they sh!t? -shouldn't facilities be improved first?
is it just me or will that road be an environmental disaster?
an kudos to the peeps haulin they're trash out with them. i always try an take a little extra of what i can see around b 4 i go.
i hope a meteorite smashes a big hole in that new road in.
I can't believe GF got red thumbs on his last couple of posts, has everyones sense of humour gone to $hit !? On a far more serious note but, can anyone tell me if I'll be able to get close enough, to be in walking distance of the point with my kit, in my Getz, on this new road. Bring it on !! Yeehah 
Glad someone has a sense of humour James.
Obviously I was making light of a serious situation.
Whilst the lifestyle and escapism in Wedge and similar set-ups is great for those that have enjoyed it, this aint the 70's anymore and most are now aware that there is damage being caused.
Even those that support the shacks seem to be saying that the place is on the slide thanks to quad biking, pizz swilling morons invading the place creating hazards and poolution.
On a slight tangent, years ago I spoke to a medico who told me he was pretty sick and tired of seeing pizzed hoons appear in his emergency room (at great cost to the public) after being evac'd out of Wedge etc.
Writing has been on the wall (or buried in the sand) for some time.
Shame it has to go but good while it lasted for the few who enjoyed it and did the right thing.
my problem is not whats there, but whos there. First time we camped there, behind the dunes on the northern beach we left our tent up, went off for a kite and came back to find someone had gone through it.
last time I slept in the car up there I was woken up by 3 cars racing around, they came over the dune, saw our car sitting there and turned off their spotties and drove up until I started the car and they left.
doesnt make for such a good weekend when its just 2 of you and there 5-10 guys pissed out of their mind driving around your camp site. even camping in lancelin is like sleeping under a jet engine. how people aren't killed often in the dunes there I dont know.
I love kiting at wedge, but there are better places where I can sleep with the doors open and hear the waves and small the sea instead of 2 stroke engines and petrol fumes. Unfortunatly they are just a bit further away.
Perhaps we should suggest noob kiters head up there (you know the "I don't kn need lessons!!" types) and let them wreak a bit of carnage.. 
A few decapitated quadbikers or mangled noobs getting dragged through the family picnic might settle the crowds down.
Note: Please note the and DON'T take anything above seriously
Hey Relo
I'll toss up a couple of comments and then bung the flame suit on in a while. Its an interesting topic that I hope attracts some worthwhile comment, not the usual bashing that happens on this forum.
Poo on!!
Breath deep Veebs, breath deep, calm, calm, calm, mellow, MELLOW, calm, breath, breath
OK so being a regular wdge goer since 72 here's my rant.
It wasnt a matter of just rockin up and nockin up a shack with the click of your fingers. Trailer after trailer load labouriously lugged up on weekends, dragged up the old track. Blown tyres, broken axles, bogged on dunes ect(and a few beers in between). And then weekends of work building the shacks and the constant maintenance and upgrades.(usually always got a surf in)
Having paid the government a lease for the past at least 10 years(cant remember exact year) I dont think we can really be classified as squatters. And its not like we dont share the place. I have been taking families,tourists and freinds to my shack for years.(one more drive to pinnacles and id have to top myself!!) And im all for camping in the dunes, its awesome fun,Its just a matter of taking your rubbish amd having respect for the environment. I know 99% of kiters have that
Its not hard to figure out the amount of mney the government would have pooled with our lease payments. Around 200k a year. For what? No ones got power or water The tip is looked after by one of the local fishos and paid by WIPA (wedg island progres association)
The Mess the blow in petrol heads leave behind on long wk ends is cleaned up by us. So I spose what im getting at is Im sure that money could have gone into better management of the place. More rangers cops ect over busy periods. Waste management advise or plans.
By the way Lurch you have been doin a top job I ave definately noticed a decline in bikes and buggies cutting up around families, and im with you on the risk of approaching some of these drug fu*$ed idiots. I avoid long weekends at wedge because i usually get cranky,
Last easter My mate who I own the shack with took one of his workers and his family up. After a great weekend of fishing, surfing, BBQ's ect they packed up ready to leave and his mate decided to take the kids for one last ride on 4wheeler.
He putted down the track to the beach and was cleaned up by a drunk 18yr old in a Hilux doin about 60ks. Kids ok somehow, he now has only one leg! THATS FU**ED.
Again another flat out weekend for the local volunteer Nurse Annie. She is now 70 and a wedge legend. She cant help helping anyone because thats the way she is. Most of her patients are Bogan fuel heads pissed and drugged up. Ive heard guys swearing and carrying on and even abuse her. These are the blown ins that are destroying the place.
Population gowth and progress. Unfortunately you cant stop it. Its been the cause of shutting down many great camp spots. Remember indgy camp area?
It is one of the last shack settlements In WA and could be classed as heratige(i know a lot will laugh) With the right management plan and a good tidy up of some of the shacks as well as a camping and caravan area I think it could still work and possibly attract tourists.
Put it this way, i wont be chaining mself to dozers, but if it happens it will be a very sad moment for me as i ahve basically grown up there, watched my mates kids grow up there and have heaps of good memories
PS what do you do with your ** and p*ss when you go camping kitepower?
Bag it up? Take it home?
Do you go camping?
G'day Kaos
My posts have got some of you shackies a bit rattled eh? Yeah I go camping, and when I do I take everything other than my p1ss and sh1t back out with me if I think the area can handle a bit of human waste, if not I take that too. I've only ever camped in sandy places near the beach in the last 20 years, because thats what I like, if the area was designated as a conservation zone that allows camping then I would take everything out with me or I'd follow whatever the rules or guidelines were.
But this thread is not about me, it is about you and the shackies, and the damage being done to the environment up there. You would have to blind and one eyed not to be able to see that, and the fact that there is a lot of damage being done up there. Maybe not by you, but you sound like the exception, from what I saw of the places myself.
If you've worked out a deal where you have been paying a lease fee, great, but I'll bet a lot of shacks pay no lease, and those owners are the ones that are not acting responsibly and who are going up there getting fueled on whatever and just trashing the place. To me it looked like the usual 80/20 rule, rules. So 80% of the people that go there are trashing the place in some way, and the other 20% look after it, you might argue its the other way around but the evidence and even the posts here seem to disagree.
Overall though the place is getting trashed worse and worse, anarchy rules up there. Are you going to approach a bunch of fueled up tools who are smashing glass, and leaving piles of buried trash, even the rangers can't stop these idiots? Same over here at Stockton, however the cops are coming out into the dunes in bigger numbers now and they are throwing the book at anyone who is acting badly, it is having a positive impact on hooning but the casual weekend campers still bury piles of cr*p and leave lots of glass and rubbish to be uncovered in a storm years later.
The places like this that we all really enjoy, need management, so get involved like I am and don't target me just because you think I'm saying something you don't like.
I'm as entitled as you to make a post about my experiences and opinions, I don't like the shacks at Greys, Wedge or Stockton beach. I think they harbour and encourage an anarchy type behaviour, which is actually very selfish and self centered, at the end of the day they are junk, when people get too old or find another interest they leave them, and they become just more trash. Management does not mean they all have to be removed, but it will introduce some badly needed controls and standards.
Some of the wealthiest families in this country started out as squatters, its just a term used to describe how the shacks came into existence, because its a fact that when people first built them thats exactly what they were doing. The fact that squatters in the past and even now eventually get legitimate land rights, hmmm thats another can of worms that the traditional hardly ever see a benefit from, isn't it?
Meanwhile, as the seabreeze forum debate ran hot, Bingles and I snuck up the coast and scored. In July!
I love wedge.
After only recently discovering wedge, i instantly went and bought a 4wd, only to find out that the place was changing and the road was going thru. a little dissappointing to say the least. The place had such an effect on me - the first time i went to wedge was in a 2wd car, and i had no idea of what to expect. i was lucky to roll into the settlement and meet some locals having a bbq, and ask for directions. i was directed towards annie - an amazing lady. She insisted i eat before anything else was said!!! i burnt my mouth on the home made pizza's they had made but i instantly felt like a part of their family. Annie asked me who i had come to visit, but i only knew their first name, thinking the place was only a few shacks (30 maybe not 350!). But eventually we worked it out and the friendly locals took me down to my mates shack!! and my love affair with wedge begins from then on!! So this is just a peice of my first experience at wedge displaying the locals hospitality and openess. once these places are gone - they will be GONE forever! And so will the people came with it..
