at Cape Jervis

Ari and I went to Cape Jervis yesterday afternoon on a photoshoot for the Fleurieu Four Seasons Prize for Landscape Photography. Cape Jervis is where you catch the ferry to Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

The recent storm had given way to sunshine, light cloud and gentle winds in Victor Harbor. So we took our chance, hoping that the weather on the western Fleurieu Peninsula would be similar to that in Victor Harbor. It was, but there was little cloud.

Ari, Cape Jerivs
Ari, Cape Jerivs

We—Ari, Suxzanne and myself— had gone there a week before, but we’d arrived too late to walk out to the point. Hence the need for me to return.

architecture in Victor Harbor

Whilst we have been holidaying at Victor Harbor, South Australia, Ari and I have been wandering around the streets of the town on our early morning poodlewalks. The early morning light in winter lightens up the town’s architecture.

Savings Bank of SA
Savings Bank of SA

When walking around this coastal town I can see it changing from a rural/holiday town to a tourist one. It is kept very clean and tidy by the council and it wins tidy town awards.

storms

Ari and I are at Victor Harbor whilst Suzanne is in Brisbane for a week. The southern coastline of the Fleurieu Peninsula and Adelaide has been hit by storms from the south west. It has been wet and cold.

Petrel Cove
Petrel Cove

The early morning and late afternoon walks have been between the rain squalls. We have to be quick as the fine weather (no rain) doesn’t last for very long.

seaweed, sand, rocks, clouds

We spent the 3 day Queens birthday weekend (7-9th June) at Victor Harbor trying to avoid the day tripper crowds on our poodlewalks. People are discovering that winter on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula is quite pleasant.

Kings Beach was one option as winter time means that there is no one swimming or sunning themselves on the beach.

seaweed, sand, rocks
seaweed, sand, rocks

People were mostly walking along the Heysen Trail, which meant that we could walk the beach slowly around to the rock coast of Kings Head.

winter approaches

The 2-3 weeks of the so called “Indian Summer” that southern Australia experienced in late Autumn has finished. The rains have come along with the storm clouds. The rain was really needed.

storm clouds
storm clouds

It rained steadily all day yesterday at Victor Harbor on the Fleurieu Peninsula. We got very wet on both the morning and evening poodle walks.

visiting Kangaroo Island

We have 6 days at American River on Kangaroo Island with friends. The time is spent relaxing, going for walks, reading, taking photos and enjoying the calm and overcast autumn conditions.

Kangaroo Island ferry
Kangaroo Island ferry

Ari and wander around the wetlands between the road and Pelican Lagoon. There is more water around the wetlands because of the very high tides.

hanging out at Kings Head

We are at Victor Harbor for the Easter to Anzac Day break. As it’s also school holidays we have been trying to avoid the crowds by going to Kings Beach and Kings Head for our poodle walks.

at Kings Head
at Kings Head

These locations have had fewer people than Petrel Cove, Dog Beach or the mouth of the Hindmarsh River. We have had to be careful walking around the rocks in this area because it has been a high tide in the late afternoon, and the waves have been very big because of the full moon.

taking a break

I spent a couple of days at Encounter Studio in Victor Harbor scanning a variety of negatives that had been taken earlier this year. Rolls of 35mm colour, 6×6, colour, black and white, and tranny and 5×4 colour sheet film needed to be done.

Scanning film is a slow, tedious task. I do not enjoy it. So I welcomed the break in the late afternoon to walk the poodles around the mouth of the Hindmarsh River in Encounter Bay, along the beach and through the estuary.

mouth of the Hindmarsh River
mouth of the Hindmarsh River

I’d initially checked the Hindmarsh estuary out because I wanted to do some large format studies of the melaleucas in the estuary that I’d scooped last year. But they were still flooded. There hadn’t been enough rain for the river flow cut through the sand bar and open the mouth of the river. So the water was backing up.

Rosetta Head

The poodles and I are at Victor Harbor for a couple of days. The weather has returned to summer conditions: it is dry, hot and strong northerly winds. People were out walking before dawn this morning to escape the heat.People have been swimming and surfing at Petrel Cove since Sunday.

It’s autumn but it really feels like summer with families hanging out on the beach in the late afternoon. It was actually too hot to have breakfast on the balcony this morning.

on Rosetta Head
on Rosetta Head

Raffi burned off his energy by chasing rabbits and kangaroos whilst Ari and I scrambled around Rosetta Head. I took the odd snap but I was thinking about how to take a photo of the Petrel Cove landscape through the car window for the April ‘windows’ theme in the 1picaday2014 project.

coastal architecture

I’ve started re-engaging with the local beachside architecture on the early morning poodle walks with Ari given my inability to represent ‘summer on the coast’ this year.

21 Investigator Cresent
21 Investigator Cresent

Some of the older coastal architecture is not going to last. A lot of the weekenders built in the 1940s -70s period are shoddier pseudo crap boxes on large blocks of land. The land is more important than the buildings and the latter will be no loss when they are eventually pulled down.