Sand, Sorrento and Side Access: Machines for Bayside and Peninsula Blocks
From Frankston to Portsea the ground is dune sand and the blocks are old beach shacks with a metre of side access. Pools, landscaping and the narrow machines that get in.
The bay side of the Mornington Peninsula, and the Melbourne suburbs from Sandringham and Frankston south, sit on dunes. Dune sand is the easiest ground in Victoria to dig and the hardest to keep dug, and the blocks it sits on are some of the tightest for access in the state.
The sand
Clean, pale, deep and free-draining. A vertical face in dry dune sand lasts seconds; damp sand holds for an hour or so. Footings are wide and shallow, pools go in fast, and soakage works because the water has somewhere to go. The spoil is clean and easy to reuse.
Digging in it
- Dig and use. A footing or pipe trench is dug and filled in the same session.
- Keep it damp. A hose on the face keeps the sand standing while you work.
- Batter deep holes. Anything over a metre is battered back or shored. Nobody enters an unshored hole in sand.
- Wide, toothless bucket. Teeth do nothing in sand; a wide mud bucket moves twice the volume and leaves a flat base.
The blocks
Old beach shacks and 1960s holiday houses on narrow lots with a carport on one side and a metre of sandy path on the other. Renovation is constant: pools, decks, extensions, new landscaping. The machine has to fit down the side, and the neighbours are close.
The R13 PRO narrows to 750 mm and the R15 to 890 mm, which gets them down most Peninsula side paths. An RS04 skid steer at about a metre wide moves sand and mulch out the same way. Where access is impossible, a crane over the fence is common in Sorrento and Portsea.
The back hills
Red Hill, Main Ridge, Arthurs Seat and the vineyard country behind the coast are a different story: volcanic soil and clay on steep blocks. The R22 PRO and a tilt bucket belong there, not the beach machines.
Winter
Sand works all year. When the rest of Melbourne is mud from May to September, Peninsula and bayside jobs carry on, which is why many Melbourne landscapers move their winter work to the coast.
Machines that suit
The R13 PRO for tight access, the R15 as the all-rounder with a wide mud bucket, the RS04 for beach-house blocks. See the Bayside and Peninsula area guide and run your access width through the machine finder.