How safe is Patonga Dr

Just how safe is Patonga Drive?

My investigation of the cliff face on Monday, August 3, by climbing above the Patonga Dr between the toilet block and the hairpin, during light rain. Has revealed at least one obvious attention getter not visible from the road.

For those using the road to access Patonga and Pearl Beach these graphic photographs may generate a stronger feeling of urgency when thinking about the time frame for those proposed road works being considered by Gosford Council.

The larger rock appears to me to be on the move.

A crack is evident along the edge of the sprayed on cement between its left face and the adjacent rock.

That cement is part of a 20 foot long horizontal water control which has come away from the enormous rock face to its left and is slipping down away from the rock toward the road below.

I understand Gosford Council intends having its agent look at other sections of the Patonga and Pearl Beach Drives, so they may become aware of this concern eventually. Lets hope it doesn't make its potential painfully obvious in the interim.

The exposed height of this threat to safety is around eight feet, the width about 10 feet and depth at the top about four.

Certainly it will weigh several tonnes.

It is not particularly safe climbing around here without using rope access.

In some spots, a slip may well end in a splat.

The source of run off silt and sand which I had hoped to catch on camera during the rain was not as evident as I had expected on the cliffs in water control infrastructure.

But the photo evidence of unstable rock face is certainly spine chilling, when you consider what it may do to a bus.

Edward James Umina