Tag: coastline

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in training

An added dimension to the poodlewalks is that I am starting to train for the 14 day camel trek in late in May 2021 from Blinman to Lake Frome. This forthcoming camel trek is part of this project.

So I have started to walk to and over Rosetta Head, run up the steps twice at Petrel Cove, and increase the poodlewalks to 90 minutes. I’ve started doing the Rosetta Head route with Kayla on Sunday mornings when Suzanne is walking on her loop route. I really need to increase my cardio and to toughen up my feet.

look west from Rosetta Head

Building up my strength and cardio is going to be long and slow as, unlike Suzanne, I am currently not going to the gym. My exercise levels and muscle strength have dropped unfortunately. These need to be substantially increased.

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self-isolation

We arrived back from a 2-3 week holiday in the lower part of the South Island in New Zealand on Monday night (the 23rd March), and immediately began our mandatory 2 weeks of self-isolation. We just made it back to Australia before New Zealand locked down–a nationwide shutdown– on Wednesday, and Virgin had cancelled all its international flights in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

I walked Kayla along the coastal rocks the morning after our return before sunrise in order to avoid other people. There was one runner on the Heritage Trail, and the Green Car man was walking amongst on the rocks with his aggressive Australian Blue Heeler on a lead. I was able to keep a large distance from both of them. Other than that there was no one around and I entered no buildings.

granite

It was a mild and overcast morning. The landscape looked so very dry compared to Fiordland or to Dunedin. Though it started to rain as we made our way back to the car at Petrel Cove, the rain didn’t last long and it was very light. It wasn’t enough to green a browned landscape.

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stormy days

South Australia was  been battered by a violent  storm from the south west during the last three days– from Thursday to Saturday. We  experienced gale force winds, solid rain, high tides  and  surging seas along  the coast of  the southern Fleurieu Peninsula.

storm,  Dep’s Beach

Our usual morning and evening poodlewalks  were curtailed due to  the water cutting off access to parts of the littoral zone. So I could not photograph the water flows.  It was also  too dangerous to venture around the rocks to Petrel Cove  to do some macro due to  the huge waves.   Continue reading “stormy days”

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at Kings-Head and beyond

The pictures in this blog post are from an afternoon poodlewalk in 2017 initially to Kings-Head in Waitpinga,  and  then on to a rocky outcrop just west of Kings Head. The rocky outcrop  is on the Coastal Cliffs walking trail to Newland Head and, as a result,  we often meet walkers coming from Waitpinga Beach.

rockface + sunlight, Kings Head

The rocky outcrop is near the foot of the Waitpinga Cliffs,  and it is  not possible to continue walking much further around the bottom of the cliffs. The Coastal Cliff walking trail  from Waitpinga Beach  to Kings Beach is along the top of the Waitpinga cliffs. Continue reading “at Kings-Head and beyond”

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at Petrel-Cove

Many of the coastal morning poodlewalks with Kayla incorporate the  return walk along the coastal  rocks  to the car park  via Petrel-Cove. Incorporating Petrel Cove  is more frequent in the early spring,  due to my  allergy to the rye grass growing along the side of the coastal path.  It irritates my eyes and causes sneezing fits.

Occasionally there is a photographer on the beach or a surfer  but more often  than not,  the  only other person in  Petrel Cove at that time of the morning is  the odd fishing man:

fisherman, Petrel Cove

Often it seem as if the fishing men  standing on the edge of the sea with their lines are meditating in nature,  and are  not overly  concerned if they don’t  catch any fish.  I can understand that as I often just sit on the rocks and watch the action of the waves.  Continue reading “at Petrel-Cove”

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sea-mist

The sea-mist doesn’t happen that often along the southern coast of  the Fleurieu Peninsula. It happens maybe about once or twice a year,  and it can be quite localised.

The sea mist  briefly appeared early one morning  late last week on the coast:

sea mist, Petrel Cove

When I saw it I hoped  the it was thick  enough for me to photograph some of the granite rocks amongst the seamiest,  as  had happened on a previous occasion.       Continue reading “sea-mist”

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recovered archives

I have been going through my old archives from a PC that died many years ago.  The images had  been backed up on Lacie hard disc which also  crashed,  and they were eventually recovered by a  tech specialist.   The 13,000 images are all jumbled up, there are many repetitions, others are jpegs,  whilst large numbers  are corrupted and so useless.

This is one rescued image from along the coast west of Petrel Cove, and it was made around 2008 when Suzanne and I were coming down to Encounter Bay for the weekends. We  were living in Adelaide’s CBD then, and  we were both working full time.

lichen + granite

My reason for returning to these archives is to see the  images that I have made around the River Murray since 2008.  I wanted to see the relevance  of these archival images for the proposed Our Waters  project with Lars Heldmann.   Continue reading “recovered archives”

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Spring has arrived

The  noticeably warmer days during  this last week in August suggest that spring is  arriving.  The sun  now rises before 6.45am and it sets just before 6pm. It is also warmer  and have started going on the early morning and late afternoon poodlewalks without a coat.   I am also  now able to enjoy breakfast on the balcony in the early morning sun.  I am sure that the wet weather weather will soon return.

Surprisingly,  my poodlewalk photography   during  the  cusp of spring/winter in 2018,  when the light becomes special,   is becoming  darker:

granite, am

The reason is not  just the low light capabilities of the Sony digital camera. I spend a lot of time being in the  coastal space  of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula,  but  as  I am isolated  in Adelaide with this kind of photography,   I have  been searching to find   what other artists representing coastal Australia in their work  have been doing.   I notice that some  work in the dark mode with their explorations of   impending storm clouds towering over the land or the wild stormy seas.

The dark mode appeals, and   I have started looking at  group exhibitions to  find a visual  affinity with the ways that some  artists have approached   representing the  ocean, waves,  rocks and sky. Continue reading “Spring has arrived”

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revisiting the American River photos

I have  finally started adding some  images to the  skeleton galleries  of this low -fi website–eg., it is the  portrait and the road trip galleries that I have been working on.  The additions are  adding some  flesh to the skeleton, as it were.

In going back through my 2018  digital archives on the hard drive of the  2017 iMac  I  came across the images  that I had made whilst  on  my  brief holiday  at  American River on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

seascape, American River

The images that caught my eye were the ones I made on an early morning autumn walk along the shoreline of the estuary on my  last day of the  brief  holiday. I had never done this on previous visits,   as I had though that this part of the estuary at American River  was more or less inaccessible. Continue reading “revisiting the American River photos”

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squalls

During the winter of 2018 the southern coast of  the Fleurieu Peninsula has  been battered by king tides squalls and gusty, cold  northwesterly winds  off and on for a couple of weeks at a time.  It is off and on because in -between  these intense,  northerly winds we have the winter’s standard south westerly winds bringing  rain in from  Western Australia.

rain + sun, Waitpinga

The rain eventually clears after a couple of days,  we have a fine day,  then we are back to the gusty northerlies again. Sometimes these changes in the weather  can be quite  atmospheric.

On the days of rain it is a matter of trying to  go on the poodlewalks inbetween the passing showers,  and then  hoping that we don’t get caught in a squall out in the open.  Often we see a lone surfer, and on other days there are groups of people standing on the cliffs look out to sea, presumably whale watching.  Continue reading “squalls”