Remembering why

Today I remembered why I don’t often make posts to the public Facebook groups.

When I went for my beach walk yesterday, I noticed the channel taking the water from the creek to the beach had completely changed direction, something that happens often with streams entering the beach. I used to see these changes in the beach I visited as a child, with the river mouth often shifting a hundred or so metres between visits.

However, this is a tiny creek and the shifts aren’t great. I have lived up here for 10 years now and walk most days down the beach. In that time, I have never seen the channel running where it is at the moment, which is directly in front of the entranceway where cars come streaming out for their beach run.

I was concerned that some unsuspecting motorist, particularly a night fisherman or a hooning youngster, might not see the change until too late. There is a large lip there and this could potentially cause quite a bit of damage to a car or even to someone’s body if the car was to flip. I thought I would post a cautionary notice on Facebook, alerting people to its presence.

I was not expecting the vitriol, in the form of comments meant to make me look stupid. Happens every year. Always happens. How do you tell someone you didn’t grow up there by not saying that.

I have thought about replying, but am thinking I will get validation at some point. I posted a photo and mentioned the lip. The only problem is the photo doesn’t show clearly the change in channel direction, which was what my post is all about. Of course, we get floods regularly and quite large lips, but all the time I have been here, that creek has flowed well to the left of any motorists making their way to the beach. Obviously, none of these commenting individuals have actually seen this latest change otherwise they wouldn’t have commented as such. They are making the assumption that I am some dumb white woman who hasn’t got a clue.

And that is the reason that I rarely put up Facebook posts on these public pages. There is a general nastiness that seems to spring from certain individuals, to often quite innocent posts. Say for example, this did happen every year like this, so what if I have alerted people to its potential danger. I just hope it is not one of your children writing off your car or worse injuring themselves.