on Sellicks Beach

After dropping off an Edgeland’s catalogue to The Arts Centre at Port Noarlunga I drove to Port Willunga to photograph the cliffs I’d scoped a few days earlier. It was pouring with rain so I drove onto Sellicks Beach and waited in the car for the rain to pass. We then walked the beach whilst I scoped the sandstone base of some of the cliffs bordering the beach.

Maleko, Sellicks Beach
Maleko, Sellicks Beach

We walked to the end of the sandstone cliffs but the rain returned about halfway back. As we’d walked past the caves at the base of the cliffs that would have provided us with some shelter from the rain, we were in the open on the beach and got wet. Once again there were 4 wheel drives whizzing up and down the beach and parking is allowed on the sand.   Continue reading “on Sellicks Beach”

at Goolwa Beach

Yesterday’s afternoon poodle walk was from the River Murray near Beacon 19 to Goolwa Beach along the Sir Richard Peninsula near the mouth of the Murray River and back again. I was looking for material whilst walking to and from the beach to build on the Edgelands project for a book, but there was little that was of interest.

The beach has been given over to 4 wheel drives—they more or less treated it as a roadway to cruise up and down. Presumably, this is what the 4 wheel drive crowd see as having fun.

Goolwa Beach
Goolwa Beach

It wasn’t all that pleasant walking along the beach with the 4 wheel drives whizzing past. It would have been great to have walked to the mouth of the Murray River, or to explore the sand patterns on the beach. This is very close to the very distinctive and vulnerable Coorong National Park.
Continue reading “at Goolwa Beach”

spring time on the coast

The weather on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula coast during Spring is turbulent. There are days of strong south easterly winds, hot days with a strong northwesterly wind, broken by cold southerly winds with a plunge in temperature. Generally its blustery with a few calm days. This year there has been very little rain.

The landscape is becoming drier. I would hate to have to exist on rainwater tank given the predictions for much less rain for southern Australia.

Ari + Maleko
Ari + Maleko

Often the light during spring can be quite eerie.

at Petrel Cove

It was just a trip to Petrel Cove this afternoon. Maleko was tired from an earlier afternoon walk around the Inman River and Kent Reserve and he didn’t want to walk that far. So Petrel Cove it was.

We mostly hung out on the beach on the Rosetta Head side of the cove. We wanted to sit in the sun and avoid the cold south easterly wind that cut through our clothes. It had been raining all morning at Encounter Bay so the sun was more than welcome.

Petrel Cove
Petrel Cove

I realised that the photography done whilst on poodle walks has a conceptual emphasis on the exploration and development of ideas surrounding those moments and aspects in everyday life that are often deemed as just normal, ordinary, perhaps even non-essential, but are in fact potentially worthy and notable and should not simply be overlooked.

limited walks

The nature of our poodlewalks has changed with the arrival of Maleko, a 8 week old blue standard poodle pup, last Friday. We cannot walk far, and we more or less hang around on the beach at Encounter Bay, in the morning.

Or rather, Suzanne walks Ari in the morning whilst I hang out on the beach with Maleko, so that he becomes at ease with, and confident in, this coastal environment.

quartz
quartz

The photography is circumscribed until Maleko can walk a greater distance. Or we carry him some of the way, which is what we did yesterday afternoon when we all went to hang out at Petrel Cove:

at Cape Jervis

Ari and I went to Cape Jervis yesterday afternoon on a photoshoot for the Fleurieu Four Seasons Prize for Landscape Photography. Cape Jervis is where you catch the ferry to Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

The recent storm had given way to sunshine, light cloud and gentle winds in Victor Harbor. So we took our chance, hoping that the weather on the western Fleurieu Peninsula would be similar to that in Victor Harbor. It was, but there was little cloud.

Ari, Cape Jerivs
Ari, Cape Jerivs

We—Ari, Suxzanne and myself— had gone there a week before, but we’d arrived too late to walk out to the point. Hence the need for me to return.

storms

Ari and I are at Victor Harbor whilst Suzanne is in Brisbane for a week. The southern coastline of the Fleurieu Peninsula and Adelaide has been hit by storms from the south west. It has been wet and cold.

Petrel Cove
Petrel Cove

The early morning and late afternoon walks have been between the rain squalls. We have to be quick as the fine weather (no rain) doesn’t last for very long.

seaweed, sand, rocks, clouds

We spent the 3 day Queens birthday weekend (7-9th June) at Victor Harbor trying to avoid the day tripper crowds on our poodlewalks. People are discovering that winter on the southern Fleurieu Peninsula is quite pleasant.

Kings Beach was one option as winter time means that there is no one swimming or sunning themselves on the beach.

seaweed, sand, rocks
seaweed, sand, rocks

People were mostly walking along the Heysen Trail, which meant that we could walk the beach slowly around to the rock coast of Kings Head.

winter approaches

The 2-3 weeks of the so called “Indian Summer” that southern Australia experienced in late Autumn has finished. The rains have come along with the storm clouds. The rain was really needed.

storm clouds
storm clouds

It rained steadily all day yesterday at Victor Harbor on the Fleurieu Peninsula. We got very wet on both the morning and evening poodle walks.

visiting Kangaroo Island

We have 6 days at American River on Kangaroo Island with friends. The time is spent relaxing, going for walks, reading, taking photos and enjoying the calm and overcast autumn conditions.

Kangaroo Island ferry
Kangaroo Island ferry

Ari and wander around the wetlands between the road and Pelican Lagoon. There is more water around the wetlands because of the very high tides.