digital Archives - Page 5 of 33

May 10, 2017

walking country roads

I returned from my quick but fruitful trip to Melbourne to solo household duties. Suzanne left the day after I returned from Melbourne to continue with her walking the Heysen Trail in the Flinders Ranges for 9 days or so. She is based at Quorn then Hawker. I am minding the standard poodles, walking 3 of them in the morning and the evening.

The places that I can walk are limited because Ari is nearing 16 and the Maleko and Kayla are 2-3 years old. So I mostly walk along the back country roads where Ari is able to walk and the other two can check the smells and hunt amongst the roadside vegetation. So my photographic options are rather limited:

I am pretty much limited to photographing the roadside vegetation whilst on the poodlewalks. The problem is that there aren’t many suitable quiet roads with limited or no traffic. So I end up walking the same roads in the morning and the evening.

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.

Continue reading “From a local beach to a carpark”

March 5, 2017

summer light

With walking along the rocky foreshore of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula out for an Ari, who is unsteady on his legs, I have shifted to walking on sandy beaches and country roads for his morning walk. He now walks on his own with me in the morning and with Suzanne in the afternoon. Kayla and Maleko walk together with Suzanne in the morning and with me in the afternoon. They are becoming easier to handle together.

This picture of roadside grasses– phalaris— was made on an early morning walk inbetween the trips to New Zealand and Tasmania in mid-February:

It had been grey and the light was flat and drab as we walked along the dusty, country road. Then the sun came out from behind the cloud cover for several minutes.

Continue reading “summer light”

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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December 7, 2016

cream brick

One of my options in our restricted poodlewalks during the current grass seed season is to park the Forester in Kent Reserve, walk west along the Encounter Bay beach towards Rosetta Head, then back along Franklin Parade to the Forester. That way I can see some of the seaside architecture along Franklin Parade that runs alongside the beach and the reef. It is a popular walking spot.

The seaside architecture is very varied and the built environment along the foreshore is undergoing change. The modest, older style beach-side shacks are being replaced by two story McMansions that take up the whole block. Some of the older architecture is at odds with the coastal environment as it is mass produced, suburban architecture from the 1950s and 1960s that has just been dumped into a coastal environment:

These kind of cream brick seaside houses do have a certain kind of historical charm and they have shown themselves to be resilient in the salty coastal environment, but I personally don’t find them very attractive.
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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”

August 12, 2016

moments of calm

Due to the ongoing kitchen renovations and the tradespeople turning up at 8am to start work on the kitchen and the laundry, the morning poodle walks along the cliff top or the back country roads are before dawn. As they are over just on sunrise so there has been little opportunity for photography on the morning walks.

The photos that I have taken on the poodle walks have been on the afternoon walks when the weather has not been stormy:

The afternoon walks in the odd day with the quieter winter weather have been moments of calm away from living in the chaos of the ongoing kitchen renovations.
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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 16, 2016

on Hall Creek Rd

Hall Creek Rd is a back country road in Waitpinga, on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula of South Australia. We have been walking along it in the late afternoon during the recent stormy weather whilst Suzanne has been away walking the Heysen Trail around Laura in the mid-north.

The road is part of the Heysen Trail, and so it is quiet. It is protected from the winds, has the afternoon sun, is reasonably dry, and the fences on both sides of the road are in good condition. The latter is crucial because there are often kangaroos in the fields:

The fences prevent the standard poodles from entering the fields to chase the kangaroos. If the kangaroos are grazing amongst the road side vegetation, which they sometimes do, they are able to jump the fences into the fields.
Continue reading “on Hall Creek Rd”