The early mornings along the coast of the southern Fleurieu Peninsula over the summer-holidays were often quite colourful. It’s was very picturesque and uplifting. An example of an early morning at Petrel Cove during the recent heat wave over the Australia Day weekend:
During the short periods of the summer’s heatwaves we would start to walk the poodles before sunrise in order to avoid the intensity of the heat. Then we would spend the rest of the day inside an air-conditioned house powered by our solar panels. The heat didn’t stop people from spending the best part of Australia Day on the beach at Petrel Cove. They came well equipped with their tents, beach umbrellas, body boards and portable barbecues.
Petrel Cove looks charming, but it does have a darker side due to its two rips. Thankfully, there were no drownings from the rips at Petrel Cove this year. There is usually one a year–people are caught in one of the rips, knocked unconscious when they are dashed onto the rocks, and their bodies are swept out to sea.
Once the Australia Day weekend was over, the summer holiday crowds disappeared; along with the fun fair, the boats, hikers and the walkers on the Heritage Trail. The schools holidays were over, the circus had long gone , and we were back to having the rocky coast west of Rosetta Head to ourselves in the morning and the evening.
During the heatwave I would be on Dep’s Beach when the sun rose , where I would witness the first rays of gentle light gently slowly highlight the granite, sand and grasses at the northern end of the beach. This is a good time to do the photography for either the Littoral Zone project or the abstraction one.
The weather changed dramatically after the Australia Day weekend heatwave. A cold front came in from the south west and the overcast skies, big waves and gusty 50 km/hr winds stayed around for most of the last week in January.
These kind of conditions make the daily routines associated with seascape type photography more difficult.