Category: coastal

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moonrise over the southern ocean

Autumn has been quite warm this year with only a few days of rain that suggest winter is an approaching.

This picture was snapped on the evening before a sou’westerly cold front moved across the coast the next day. It was a mild and warm dusk and it was very still. People were out swimming, walking, fishing, playing at Petrel Cove, fishing and running even though it was dusk.

moonrise
moonrise

I was returning to the car park at Petrel Cove from a walk with Ari and Maleko just as the moon was rising over the southern ocean south of Rosetta Head, or the Bluff. I couldn’t resist taking handheld a snap.
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a hot and dry autumn

So far autumn—-that is March and April—in southern Australia has been hot and dry with very little rain. It feels unseasonably warm in the sense of the temperatures being above normal. Presumably, the current spike in warm weather is happening partly because of the El Niño that spread a pulse of warm water across the Pacific Ocean in 2015. That El Niño is now dissipating, spreading the warmer water around Australia, raising temperatures.

surfer+fisherman, Petrel Cove
surfer+fisherman, Petrel Cove

These warm temperatures—-there is heat in the sun at 9am in the morning—that is caused by a dissipating El Niño is happening on top of the background of global warming. What we are seeing and experiencing is a continuous process of global warming that is superimposed on to the natural variability. Long term that means longer heatwaves, greater droughts, less water and rising sea levels for southern Australia.
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early morning

I have been away on a couple of photo trips without the standard poodles. The last one to the Yorke Peninsula was based on camping out, rather than renting a cabin or house, which is quite expensive. I would like to take one of the poodles with me on these road trips but I’m still finding my feet camping. It’s over 25 years since I last camped.

In between the trips we have gone on our usual poodle walks along the coast and the back country roads in the early morning and in the late afternoon. One in the early morning light:

coastal grasses
coastal grasses

The long summer holiday season has gone and the recreational crowds have vanished. The weather may be cooler and the winds stronger, but we pretty much have the beaches to ourselves once again.
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After Easter

The Easter crowds from Adelaide have come and gone from the southern coast of Fleurieu Peninsula.

It is now possible to return to walking the foreshore and exploring the beaches instead of walking back country roads to avoid the holiday crowd making the most of their playtime. There seems to be a lot more people playing along the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast than there used to be. A lot more cars are cruising around exploring the coast.

quartz, Deps Beach
quartz, Deps Beach

Summer is over and we are now in autumn. The light has shifted, daylight saving finishes this weekend, and the photographs that I had scoped and lined up are no longer possibly because the early morning sun has shifted much further to the west. Continue reading “After Easter”

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Mad March 2016

If it is autumn on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, then it is still summer in Adelaide. So I discovered when I walked the city taking in the various Magic Object visual art exhibitions in this years Adelaide Festival of Arts whilst I waited for the Subaru Outback to be serviced.

I was more than happy to return to the cooler temperatures of the coast after spending several hours walking the city in the 36 degrees heat with its high humidity, due to a low-intensity heatwave that has hovered over south-eastern Australia for the past week. We have early autumn temperatures in the mid-to-high 20s on the coast.

Rosetta Head
Rosetta Head

It’s Mad March in the Adelaide with Festival, the open access Fringe and Womadelaide.

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a touch of autumn

There was a touch of autumn in the air this morning.

It had rained overnight and the clouds were still hanging around the coast at dawn when we started the poodlewalk. I wanted the walk over early because I hoped the clouds would slowly disappear, and I would be able to make a large format photograph of the roadside vegetation landscape at 7.30 am. This had been previously scoped. The gear was in the boot of the car. I just needed the sun to shine at 7.30am.

coastal path, sunrise
coastal path, sunrise

The sun did emerge from the clouds as we were walking along the beach, so I took a snap or two, and we quickly finished the walk. I drove over to the site on the country road, but I found that, by the time we got there, more clouds had come across the land from the sea. The sun that I needed at 7.30 am to highlight the roadside vegetation wasn’t going to happen that morning. It became more and more cloudy. I gave up on the photoshoot.
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grumble, grumble

People have been having lots of fun along the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula on their summer holidays. This part of the coast has remained as Adelaide’s main summer playground. However, we can’t wait for Australia Day to come and go since that means that the summer holiday crowds will start returning to Adelaide for work and school.

Since Xmas, the region has been full off people, cars, boats and the rubbish of takeaway food dumped where it is eaten. The anti-biking crowd have broken glass all over bike paths up to Rosetta Head, the wooden barriers to prevent the cars going onto nature reserves have been smashed, and there is human shit along the base of cliffs bordering the beaches west of Rosetta Head.

This was one morning when I did the cliff-top walk rather than walking the Heysen Trail. It was very humid that morning and it looked like it would rain:

storm, Petrel Cove
storm, Petrel Cove

However, the clouds quickly disappeared and the humidity, intense sun and the stillness meant that it was unpleasantly hot on the beach. The morning walk was cut short and we returned to the house and to air-conditioning.
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amongst the coastal rocks

Kayla, Ari and myself were returning to the Mazda after an early morning photoshoot–a rockpool— along the coast near Kings Beach Rd. A photoshoot was a break from being more or less sitting in a front of a computer working on the Fleurieuscapes exhibition at Magpie Springs. The opening is on Sunday January 17th.

The tide was low and it was overcast so I could access some of the coast that was not possible during the winter. I had explored this part of the coast whilst on a poodlewalk yesterday morning and I decided to go back this morning, if there was some cloud cover.

2 poodles
2 poodles

People are still on their holidays along the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, so there are plenty of runners, walkers, trail-bikers and dog walkers on the coastal path between Petrel Cove and Kings Beach in the early morning. It is still cool at this time of the day and, as the coastal winds have eased, it is pleasant walking. Continue reading “amongst the coastal rocks”

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photographing trees

As a break from working on, and uploading, some of the digital work from the Wellington trip, I’ve been figuring out to photograph trees, and, more generally, the local remnant scrub along the coastal sand dunes and on the roadside vegetation along the back country roads.

coastal tree
coastal tree

I see lots of trees on our poodle walks, and I’m finding it hard to both photograph them and do it well. Most of the tree images for the forthcoming Fleurieuscapes photographic exhibition at Magpie Springs never made it past the second cut. That says that I need to lift my game.
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