at Currency Creek

We all went for a walk at Currency Creek on the previous long weekend–Adelaide Cup Day. I hadn’t been there for ages–several years in fact. The photography that I did then was rather disappointing, and I hadn’t been all that keen on returning. This was a family outing:

Currency Creek
Currency Creek

On previous visits we have had the place to ourselves. Not this time. It was packed. People were camping in the picnic ground that is opposite the historic Kingsbrook estate. There are now a lot more people touring around and visiting the Fleurieu Peninsula these days.

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at Port Adelaide

After I’d taken Maleko to see the Chirovet at Old Port Rd at Albert Park, near Port Adelaide, I drove down to the Port for a coffee at the Red Lime Shack cafe in Vincent Street. Then Maleko and I wandered around the Port. I was going to do some scoping before I returned to Adelaide to pick my negatives from Atkins Photo Lab. Unlike Bond Imaging in Melbourne Atkins still continue to develop roll and sheet colour film.

It had been raining during the night and in the morning in Adelaide, but the cloud cover was starting to break up when we started walking. The Port looked picturesque with Grand Big Top of the Zirka Circus next to Hart’s Mill. Another sign that the revitalisation of the Port was happening. I couldn’t resist taking a snap:

circus, Port Adelaide
circus, Port Adelaide

I had planned to spend a couple of hours exploring, and returning to walk around Mutton Cove Conservation Reserve in Osborne, but it was very hot and humid around midday so the photowalk was cut short.
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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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walking in the Coorong

On our return trip to Adelaide from Melbourne via the Great Ocean Road we tacked on a couple of days onto the return journey so that we could stay at Salt Creek in the Coorong. I wanted to go photographing, and to scope the area for the Edgelands project. This stopover was after we had spent a few days in exploring in the Otways.

Whilst at Salt Creek Ari and I walked in, and explored, the nearby edgelands on an overcast day for a future large format photoshoot:

Coorong
Coorong

I had to admit it, but I got completely lost whilst wandering around scoping for some large format photography, and I had to rely on Ari to get me back to the car. I would have remained disorientated without Ari as I had just wandering around completely absorbed in photographing without giving much though to the fact that I was actually “bushwalking”, and that I hadn’t taken any precautions.
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walking along the Old Ocean Road

When we stayed in some cottages for a couple of days near to Johanna Beach on our way back to Adelaide from Melbourne, Ari and I walked along the Old Ocean Road in the Otway Forest. This was a back country road with very little traffic, and so it was ideal for meandering along carrying a digital camera, the baby Linhof, Gitzo tripod, 6×9 film backs and light meter in the late afternoon.

Linhof, Ottawa's forest
Linhof, Ottawa’s forest

As the Old Ocean road was situated within the Otway Ranges but outside the Great Otway National Park, it was okay for Ari to accompany me on the photowalk. This section of the road was about 8 kilometres but we only walked a couple of kilometres before I used up the colour and black film.
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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”

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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