Category: Fleurieu Peninsula

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wet weather

Cold, wet weather  that came in from the south-west replaced the few days of hot weather after my Sonex  flight along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula earlier in the week.   The temperature is  now roughly half of what it was  during that hot spell.

Suzanne and I got very wet on a couple of occasions on our walks  — we were caught in the fast moving rain  that swept in from the southern ocean whilst  out walking with the poodles.

granite, quartz, sea

There is little shelter along  the coast west of Petrel Cove.  On an afternoon walk  Maleko and I had  little choice but to continue  walking and  to get wet in the process.  At least it was not as cold as it would have been  in winter. Continue reading “wet weather”

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Aerial: The coast from above

I had the great fortune to  experiment with  some aerial photography yesterday. I was given the opportunity   to  fly along part of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coastline,   courtesy of  Chris Dearden  in his yellow, homebuilt    Sonex aircraft– a Xenos motorglider.

It was the first time  that I’d  had the opportunity  to  experiment with  aerial photography and flying in a recreational aircraft was a blast.

Rosetta Head

We took off from Goolwa airport and  flew along the coast from the Murray Mouth near Goolwa  to Newland Heads in Waitpinga, then back again.  The above image  is a picture of Rosetta Head, Petrel Cove and Dep’s Beach, which is  where  we  do a lot of  our coastal poodlewalks.  Continue reading “Aerial: The coast from above”

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on The Bluff

Whilst Suzanne was away walking the Wilderness Trail on Kangaroo Island with her walking friends, I looked after, and walked, the two standard poodles twice a day.  That’s the daily  routine with hunting dogs.

Maleko + Kayla

These portraits of Maleko and Kayla was made whilst we were on an early morning walk up, over and down Rosetta Head  (or The Bluff). Ari had  just died a few days earlier, before Suzanne  went walking on  Kangaroo Island.

We were hanging about on the top of The Bluff having a bit of fun as it had been the first time I’d walked up Rosetta Head in the early morning for ages

Continue reading “on The Bluff”

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portraiture

Kayla is still on restricted walks. Though the courses of anti-inflammatories has finished, she continues to be walked on her own both morning and afternoon to allow the ligaments around her knees to heal. I walk her in the morning and Maleko in the afternoon. Suzanne does the opposite. We are playing it safe. No rough chasing games.

This allows me time to continue to work on The Littoral Zone project. Some recent examples:– an abstraction; a rockpool granite rocks along the coast; and an open air studio images.

A portrait of Kayla at Petrel Cove:

Kayla

These solo walks will change tomorrow as I am off on a photo trip to the South Australia Mallee for 5 days, and so Suzanne will have to walk both dogs together. She will need to exercise her skills to prevent them from playing their mad chasing games, or chasing kangaroos.

Continue reading “portraiture”

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Petrel Cove: stormy days

The glorious spring weather disappeared completley on the weekend just past. Since Sunday morning strong south-westerly winds and rain have pounded the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast. The wind has been bitterly cold. Fortunately, it was no superstorm, as they experience with the Atlantic basin hurricanes. I cannot imagine what winds of 180 mph or higher would be like. The winds of category 5 hurricanes must be life threatening.

The local storm caused large waves to roll in from the southern ocean, and these have made it very difficult for us to walk around the coastal rocks on our poodle walks. We haven’t been able to go very far around the rocks at all.

waves, Petrel Cove

It has just been too dangerous for us to walk around the rocks as the huge waves were coupled with high tides. The seventh wave–a storm surge?–has generally been monstrous.

Continue reading “Petrel Cove: stormy days”

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Vale Ari

We had to put Ari down this afternoon.

He was suffering from paralysed nerves in his larynx which made breathing for him very difficult. He overheated at the dog groomers yesterday, collapsed with a panic attack, and had to be rushed to the Mt Barker Veterinary Clinic to be sedated.

Today he could barely walk up our drive. He was very weak and he could not balance on the tiles in the laundry–his back legs just slide underneath him and he would lie spreadeagled on the floor unable to get up. He was a month shy of being 16 years old. He lived a full life with lots of walks.

This is one of the last photos that I took of Ari. It was in autumn in 2017 on an early morning poodlewalk along Encounter Bay. The photo is from this session in March:

Ari, Encounter Bay

I didn’t take any more after this.

Continue reading “Vale Ari”

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field, sea, sky

I have started to walk along the back country roads looking for photographic subjects whilst  on  the afternoon poodle walks with Kayla and Maleko.  I have become tired of sitting in front of the computer screen working on the texts of The Bowden Archives book and I am looking for a break.

This is an example of my recent scoping,   from  an afternoon last week when we were walking along the road to the old Victor Harbor dump:

Waitpingafieldsea

After the dump shifted to Goolwa the ‘no through’ road now leads to the Kings Beach Retreats. There is not much traffic during the week so it is a good back road to walk along with the standard poodles.

Continue reading “field, sea, sky”

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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.

salt pond

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.

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an open air studio

Suzanne is currently away walking in the Mt Remarkable National Park around the Alligator Gorge area. It’s a short walking holiday based at Alligator Lodge with some friends from the Larapinta walk that they did earlier in 2015. She will explore the Mt Remarkable area again next year when walking section 43 of the Heysen Trail. Hopefully, Suzanne will scout for some good photographic sites.

I’m at Encounter Bay minding the 3 standard poodles and looking for areas to walk in the morning and evening, which are away from people and grass seeds. In the morning that requires me to be walking on the beach at Encounter Bay before everyone else comes out, take a quick photo of objects near the sand dunes, then move on. We are generally back home by 7am.

iron + wood, Hayborough
iron + wood, Hayborough

In the evening  the best option  is  to walk to Kings Beach in Waitpinga, then hang out around Kings Head because nobody goes there other than the odd surfer when the waves are rolling right. People prefer the beach to the rocky outcrops and so they miss the dolphins cruising by around the headland. The Heysen Trail walkers go over the top of Kings Head on their way to the Newland cliffs.
Continue reading “an open air studio”

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struggling

Whilst Suzanne has been away walking the Heysen Trail around the Kapunda and Burra area in South Australia this week, I’ve been minding the standard poodle, processing and uploading some of the images from my road trips early this year, and planning the Mallee Highway silo project for next winter. I’m very limited in where I can go walking at the moment because I have to stay in, and around, areas that are from the dam grass seeds. They are everywhere.

I have been limited to walking along the coastline at such places as Kings Beach and Kings Head where there are few people. Or walking along the country roads that are part of the Heysen Trail and that don’t have that many grass seeds amongst the roadside vegetation.

rockface, Kings Head
rockface, Kings Head

I cannot do much photography when I am walking with three dogs. I have to keep an eye on the dogs rather than use the poodle walks to look for photographic opportunities:
Continue reading “struggling”