The medium format photos that I have done (in both colour and black and white) are made when the poodlewalk has finished. This is after sunrise. Thankfully, Kayla stays close to me during the photography session. It is quiet until around 8am, which is when the car traffic starts as the parents drive their kids to school in Victor Harbor.
I do take digital snaps —scoping pictures–whilst walking, as the early morning slowly becomes lighter and the first rays of the sun start to highlight parts of the roadside vegetation. It is a pleasure to watch the landscape change as the sun’s rays move across the pink gums ( pink gums ( Eucalyptus fasciculosa F. Muell) .
Halls Creek Rd is a favourite walking road. It is part of the Heysen Trail and it is quiet, as it has little car traffic in the morning. I just have to keep an eye for kangaroos to ensure that Kayla does get through the farm fences and chase them.
In this area of Waitpinga area there is extensive canopy decline of pink gums amongst the road side vegetation, due to a combination of continual mistletoe infection, declining autumn rainfall and reduced groundwater. The mistletoe infection, which apparently started in the 1970s, is the most visible cause of eucalyptus decline in Waitpinga and more generally in the Mt Lofty Ranges.
As there appears to be no mistletoe removal experiments happening in Waitpinga area of the Mt Lofty Ranges region of South Australia the canopy intactness of the pink gums continues to decline.
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