One of my memories of the early morning walks that I used to do in the last months of Ari’s life in 2017 was one where I ‘d walk with him along Jetty Rd. On these occasions Suzanne would take Kayla and Maleko up and over Rosetta Head, and I would walk with Ari down to the beach, then along Jetty Rd, which runs around the foot of Rosetta Head.
Jetty Rd runs from Whalers Convention Centre to the little jetty at the northern side of Rosetta Head, and as it is easy walking, it was suitable for Ari. The jetty is a favourite of the recreational fishermen and we’d alway meet someone fishing from the jetty early in the morning.
cactus leaves, Jetty Rd,
It was a slow walk to and from the jetty, and Ari and I would often hang around an old palm tree and cactus on our way back. I would take a few photos with the little Olympus XZ-1 that we had purchased for Suzanne to use on her various walks. Continue reading “memories”
We are in the middle of the Xmas summer holidays and the Heritage Trail is now extremely popular, as is the beach at Petrel Cove. As usual the recreational fishermen are out in force in their hunt the oceanic wilderness beyond the Encounter Marine Park for the Southern Bluefin tuna. This recreational fishing is still allowed in Australia, despite the accepted global status of Bluefin tuna as an over-fished species.
There appears to be a lot more people holidaying on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula this year. Maybe people are holidaying locally cos the poor exchange rate for Australian dollar makes the overseas holiday trips too expensive?
Kayla and I have taken to walking around the empty streets of the township at 6.30 am for our early morning walks:
alleyway, Victor Harbor
We wander down any alleyway that we come across that would provide some shade and protection from the wind. The alleyways allow us to avoid all the runners and the bicyclists on the paths near the beach. Continue reading “Xmas”
I had the great fortune to experiment with some aerial photography yesterday. I was given the opportunity to fly along part of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coastline, courtesy of Chris Dearden in his yellow, homebuilt Sonex aircraft– a Xenos motorglider.
It was the first time that I’d had the opportunity to experiment with aerial photography and flying in a recreational aircraft was a blast.
Rosetta Head
We took off from Goolwa airport and flew along the coast from the Murray Mouth near Goolwa to Newland Heads in Waitpinga, then back again. The above image is a picture of Rosetta Head, Petrel Cove and Dep’s Beach, which is where we do a lot of our coastal poodlewalks. Continue reading “Aerial: The coast from above”
Whilst Suzanne was away walking the Wilderness Trail on Kangaroo Island with her walking friends, I looked after, and walked, the two standard poodles twice a day. That’s the daily routine with hunting dogs.
Maleko + Kayla
These portraits of Maleko and Kayla was made whilst we were on an early morning walk up, over and down Rosetta Head (or The Bluff). Ari had just died a few days earlier, before Suzanne went walking on Kangaroo Island.
We were hanging about on the top of The Bluff having a bit of fun as it had been the first time I’d walked up Rosetta Head in the early morning for ages
Kayla is still on restricted walks. Though the courses of anti-inflammatories has finished, she continues to be walked on her own both morning and afternoon to allow the ligaments around her knees to heal. I walk her in the morning and Maleko in the afternoon. Suzanne does the opposite. We are playing it safe. No rough chasing games.
These solo walks will change tomorrow as I am off on a photo trip to the South Australia Mallee for 5 days, and so Suzanne will have to walk both dogs together. She will need to exercise her skills to prevent them from playing their mad chasing games, or chasing kangaroos.
Whilst Suzanne has been away walking the Heysen Trail in and around the Flinders Ranges with friends, I have been without internet access for 4 days. It was disconnected on Thursday. Internode , I discovered, was rebuilding the NBN gateway at Stirling because those on the NBN broadband were experiencing frequent dropout–probably due to live streaming Netflix. Whilst I was disconnected I realised just how integral the internet is to my life.
Internode advised me this morning that they had things at their end finally up and running. However, I still had no access. I was then on the mobile phone with Internode’s tech support for 3 hours to reconfigure the Fritzbox 7490 before studio’s computers could access the internet. (We finally realised that the Fritzbox’s wizard was playing up and the settings in the Fritzbox modem had to be manually configured). We are still experiencing problems connecting the Fritzbox modem and the VoIP FritzFon: a second session with tech support this afternoon failed to establish a phone connection via the Fritzbox.
After being connected this morning I quickly uploaded a couple of images into my digital gallery for the Mallee Routes project that I working on.
Whilst I was disconnected from the internet the local boat ramp car park was still being extended, mainstream newspapers continue to sack their photographers, and I continued to walk the 3 standard poodles in the morning and evening. These are autumn days on the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia, and the mornings can be quite spectacular:
am, Baum Rd, Waitpinga
There was heavy mist on the fields along Baum Rd on Saturday morning, and the mist hung around after sunrise. The next morning I took my film cameras with me on the early morning walk along Baum Rd hoping for a repeat, but there there wasn’t any mist at all. Unfortunately, for me, there hasn’t been any mist since. Dam.
The high summer season is over, people have returned to work, and we are back from our holiday in Tasmania. Life on the coast, with its early morning and late afternoon poodlewalks, is starting to return to normal.
