grumble, grumble

People have been having lots of fun along the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula on their summer holidays. This part of the coast has remained as Adelaide’s main summer playground. However, we can’t wait for Australia Day to come and go since that means that the summer holiday crowds will start returning to Adelaide for work and school.

Since Xmas, the region has been full off people, cars, boats and the rubbish of takeaway food dumped where it is eaten. The anti-biking crowd have broken glass all over bike paths up to Rosetta Head, the wooden barriers to prevent the cars going onto nature reserves have been smashed, and there is human shit along the base of cliffs bordering the beaches west of Rosetta Head.

This was one morning when I did the cliff-top walk rather than walking the Heysen Trail. It was very humid that morning and it looked like it would rain:

storm, Petrel Cove
storm, Petrel Cove

However, the clouds quickly disappeared and the humidity, intense sun and the stillness meant that it was unpleasantly hot on the beach. The morning walk was cut short and we returned to the house and to air-conditioning.

We returned to the beach in the late afternoon so that I could photograph some salt abstracts that I’d seen in the morning:

salt abstract, Petrel Cove
salt abstract, Petrel Cove

I keep quietly working away on The Littoral Zone series.

Before Xmas it became obvious that many of those who live at Victor Harbor have developed an anti-development mindset run that they are opposed to a new Coles supermarket on the old TAFE site on the Adelaide Rd and to a seawater aquarium just off a very run down and decripit Granite Island. This opposition is less about desiring a form of development that is appropriate to the region and more about wanting to keep Victor Harbor as the sleepy, inward-looking coastal seaside town that they once knew. Nostalgia for what once was is very strong.

The small traders on the Council have caused the Council to shift to supporting the anti-development with respect to the Coles re-development because of their desire to protect the old main street, which is now dying because the shopping centre has shifted to the Woolworths mall. It dragged its heels on approving the various development proposed for the area and consequently, the control over the developments gave to the state government after the Council failed to meet deadlines on the Waitpinga Makris site, the proposed Aldi site on Adelaide Rd and the Coles development of the TAFE site also on Adelaide Rd.