coastal Archives - Page 10 of 20

April 18, 2017

From a local beach to a carpark

On my morning poodle walks with Ari I have noticed how the Bluff Boat Ramp car park extension at the western end of Encounter Bay is taking out a beach to construct a carpark for boaties, which will they only use during the peak summer Xmas season.

The extension allows for an additional 34 parking spaces to accommodate 14 boat trailers and 20 cars. Currently there are 34 parking spaces for boaies at the Bluff Boat Ramp car park, and this only overflows 4 days a year around Xmas with the summer influx of boaties. The extension costs $548,300 with the Victor Harbor Council receiving funding of $242,150 from the state government for the project.The extension has State Agency (DPTI) support of the project and it was approved by the Development Assessment Commission.

The current parking area in front of Whalers is used by boaties, school buses, paddlers and sightseers and there is space for approximately 60 cars. But with the boat ramp expansion the parking area will be reduced to only 20 with the rest of area being used strictly for boaties and their cars and trailers. So half a million is being spent for the current car park for boaties and their trailers that will be used for 4 days a year.

A beach goes in the name of car parks to foster tourism.

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March 27, 2017January 3, 2018

Ari

Ari is going on 16 years of age and he has slowed down a lot. His hearing and sight are limited, he has dementia, and he is wobbly on his back legs. The course of acupuncture is keeping him going as is the companionship with the younger poodles.

The morning walks have decreased in terms of the time spent we spend walking. We walk slowly along the road down to the beach, shuffling along as it were.

The autumn mornings before sunrise are a great time to be walking. It is soft and gentle time. There a few walkers, runners and bikers but it is pretty quiet. So we can meander and hang out amongst the rocks along the beach . We are able to just enjoy the moments together and he still enjoys having his photo taken.

Continue reading “Ari”

March 7, 2017

Gallery?

I have been trying to create a gallery for poodlewalks, but I don’t seem to be able to with this free theme or template. This was the image that I was trying to kick things off with. Another version of the image on a walk late last year around Petrel Cove is on The Littoral Zone blog.

Whilst I was trying to create a project page, the first of which is abstractions, I lost the WordPress theme for poodlewalks. I have spent ages trying to find the one that I had been using and which I quite liked.

February 15, 2017

returning to normal

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.

I had been busy working on The Bowden Archives and Other Marginalia project throughout January and I didn’t really have the time to update poodlewalks, even though I’d been doing the daily walks.
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November 10, 2016

restricted walks

The morning and evening poodlewalks have become limited in scope and diversity. Ari is now 15 years old. He has slowed down and he is unsteady on his back legs. He can no longer walk over rocks, and so we are limited to walking along the beach. That limits the walk for the other standard poodle (Kayla the morning and Maleko in the afternoon) and it restricts my photography severely.

One option that I have explored has been to make a return to Petrel Cove:

Another reason why we havre limited to the beach is the grass seeds among the roadside vegetation of the back country roads or the costal reserves. The grass seeds are drying out and, as they cling to the poodle’s woollen coats and feet, the back country roads are becoming increasingly becoming out of bounds.
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September 14, 2016

early spring

The early Spring weather has been wild, since the opening of the Weltraum exhibition at Magpie Springs on Sunday. The gale force winds and driving rain have meant that I didn’t bother to take my digital camera with me on the early morning and evening poodle walks.

The walks were done quickly: we drove to a location, had a quick walk, then returned to the car before we get too soaked. The landscape is saturated from the rains and water is flowing everywhere.

Prior to the opening of the Weltraum exhibition the weather was calmer and some photographs were taken whilst on our early morning poodle walks:

I had been mostly photographing for the Littoral Zone project. This is what the daily photography on the poodlewalks has become now that we are living on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. Continue reading “early spring”

July 30, 2016

After the storms

The recent stormy, winter weather has meant that our poodle walks have been mostly along the back country roads since they offer some protection from the wind. We have only infrequently walked along the coastline because it is usually windswept: battered by the south-westerly winds and intense rain.

The picture below is from one of the rare occasions during July that we ventured onto Rosetta Head. We waited in the Subaru Forester for the squalls to pass through, then we went for our walk around Rosetta Head keeping an eye on the incoming squalls coming from the south.

Whilst we were waiting in the Subaru for the squalls to pass I took some photos of the landscape through the windscreen of the Forester.
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July 1, 2016

Rosetta Head

I have been minding the standard poodles whilst Suzanne has been in the Pilbara in Western Australia with Heather Petty exploring the Karijini National Park in the Hamersley Range. They camped at the Karijini Eco Retreat.

It’s been cold, stormy and wet on the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula with sporadic sunshine.I have been trying to walk in the morning and the evening between the squalls in areas that provide some protection from the bitter southerly winds and away from the mud. So we have been walking along back country roads in the morning and later afternoon. The only photographs that I have done whilst Suzanne has been away are a few snaps on the poodle walks. On some days I didn’t even bother to take a camera with me.

Things were looking up this morning. The wind had dropped, it wasn’t raining, and there was early morning sunshine rather than drizzle. So we walked up Rosetta Head, or The Bluff.
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June 18, 2016

on the breakwater

Our poodlewalks have been very limited in scope and duration this last week.

This was due to Kayla’s surgery to remove the bones that were struck in her small intestine and stomach. She had to walk on a lead, and in the morning we walked down to the beach at Encounter Bay, out along the breakwater near the boat ramp and then back to the house. In the evening, I walked Ari and Maleko whilst Suzanne walked Kayla.

All that I could by way of photography in the morning was to photograph the rocks of the breakwater in the early morning winter light:

We were lucky to have a couple of clear mornings between the showers and squalls that have broken the warm autumn that emerged out of the prolonged summer period in March and that continued into the start of May.I gather that El Niño is now waning into its opposite phase, La Niña. Winter has been wet but not that cold.
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May 29, 2016

winter light

Winter has come to the coast of South Australia.

The balmy autumn weather has given away to rain, cold winds, and stormy conditions. We now wear rain jackets when we are walking the poodles. The change in the seasons has been quite abrupt and sudden.

The light is much softer now and it is easier to work with in the early morning:

The digital photographers are out in force around dusk in, and around, the Petrel Cove area. They look as if they come down to the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula for the day. They work their DSLR’s on tripods and stay on the coastal path along the top of the cliffs. From what I can see as we walk past them, is that they are using their zoom lenses to photograph the breaking waves below them.They don’t venture down the cliffs, or get amongst, and explore, the coastal rocks.
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