Beach bog, collapsed sand wall with tide only a meter away

by Lee Grainger
(Perth WA )

I had just bought my Holden Colorado and took it for a test run on the Alcamos beach in Perth.

We were driving along and noticed that the tide had carved a drop off from the top of the beach to the ocean, leaving a two foot or so drop down to were the tide was coming in.
As we drove along the path got smaller and smaller, been unable to slow down momentum in fear of the wall collapsing i decided to keep going. (bad idea)
As we hit the smallest section of the path the side of the wall collapsed and the whole drivers side of the car collapsed into the wet sand below, franticly i wound down the window and jumped out to access the situation as my door was wedged closed by the sand below me.

With no recovery gear to assist with the situation (another stupid mistake) i started to dig out the side of the car and compact the sand below the wheels.
At this point i was very lucky as the tide was just rising and stopping about a meter away from the tiers after a while i climbed back in the drivers seat and applied very slight revs whilst feeding the clutch out just to the point were it bites, very slowly it started to grip and pull its self out once out of the bog we were on wet sand and had to turn around and get the hell out of there.
This bog would have been a lot harder in a automatic as the wheels turn on you once in gear. I was very very lucky as if it was half an hour later the car would have been a goner.

The last thing on my mind at the time was to take a photo so i havn't got one to show but it just go's to show how unpredictable a beach I have been going to for 10 years can change in a matter of a week.

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