along the Heritage-Trail

These clouds and early morning light  are   what I saw on early on  Friday  morning   when  Kayla and I were walking along the Heritage-Trail  through a familiar coastal landscape.   It was so very still that morning.

These are the  kind of conditions that  indicate that a dramatic change in the weather  is about  to happen; usually, they mean that the hot weather is coming to an end,  and  a  big  storm will be sweeping into the coast of the  Fleurieu Peninsula  from the south west.

am, Dep’s Beach

It was the morning  of  the 13th April, which is when  the cold front  with its  wild winds and  driving rain,  hit the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula in the late afternoon.

I was taking advantage of the lull before the storm  to walk   to a specific site  amongst the granite rocks around the point from Dep’s  Beach; a site that  I had selected for a large format photo session.  

I made some snaps of familiar objects with my digital camera as I slowly scrambled  amongst  the granite rocks to the site of the makeshift open air studio.

farmhouse+rainbow

The  large format photo session went well, for once. The gear worked, and I didn’t make any mistakes.  I was very methodical and slow.

However,   I overloaded my back carrying all the large format gear uphill to  the car that was parked at Petrel Cove.  I was very thankful that I had an appointment booked with  my  chiropractor on  the Friday afternoon, and that my back could be adjusted before  the lower back locked up. 

My back  was sore and tender throughout the Saturday,   which is when the intensity of the  storm was at its peak. The weather cleared late Saturday afternoon, only for  the rain in the form of passing showers/drizzle  returning on   Sunday morning.

When Kayla and  I was walking along the path on Sunday morning the large waves were pounding  the coastal rocks and  the tide was very high.

granite abstract

When we ventured  down to the rocks I noticed   that most of  the  seaweed that had accumulated throughout the summer had  gone.  A lot of  the sand on  Dep’s Beach and at Petrel Cove  had  also been washed away, exposing the underlying rock formation. The Littoral Zone had undergone a dramatic change  during those  48 hours.

The   site of the open air studio wasn’t accessible because of the tide, so   I had to postpone   the black and white abstraction   photo session  that I had planned with  the baby Linhof.   My back is still too tender to lug the large format gear down to the rocks.