IT'S not every day you see an excavator on one of Bargara's beaches and the sight is proving quite the attraction.

Work has begun on a 68m long rockwall in front of the Miller St Dune and Saltwater Apartments at Kelly's Beach in a move to protect the land and buildings from further erosion.

Project manager Barry Hurst said quite a few people were stopping to watch the works and taking photos.

"There's a heap of people here taking photos now," he said.

"The excavator's on the beach now and it will probably take about another three weeks.

"Three to four weeks to build the wall and then I've got to reinstate the decks. The platform decks that are here have nearly fallen in so they have to be pulled down and rebuilt.

"At the moment, if we didn't (do the work) we'd have the same thing happen as in Sydney - probably not as bad - but that's the end result if we don't do something about it and get one big storm.

"We lost a lot of sand and about 2.4m of the garden and grass about two years ago."

Mr Hurst said the first stage was removing the sand and a few rocks they'd uncovered before the rocks for the seawall were brought in.

The machinery is entering the beach from the Christsen Park carpark during the works.

He said the project had been heavily scrutinised by the council and the state government, with a coastal engineer overseeing the work.

"We've got plans from the coastal engineer and we need to follow those plans," he said.

"Council couldn't have been better to deal with, they've been great from the word go.

"They were really helpful during the whole process."