Immigrating to Australia, why I now photograph the ocean!??

Immigrating to Australia, why I now photograph the ocean!??

Kaikoura mountain range.

The view out of my bedroom window back in New Zealand on a winters day, mountains covered in snow.

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When we first immigrated from New Zealand to Adelaide, Australia, I found the landscape boring, mundane and lacking height. Lowlands everywhere and not a drop of water in sight. I mean around every corner in New Zealand is a mountain, a river or a lake, all clear, blue and very pure.

Blue lake in Southland New Zealand
A river in New Zealand
River turquoise and abundant New Zealand

Rivers, rivers everywhere and lots of drops to drink! Not so in South Australia we discovered!

 

OUR TREK TO FIND SOME WATER

Being unused to the South Australian landscape, on a 40 degree day we headed towards the hills (Mount Lofty range)….looking for rivers, lakes and lagoons so we could cool off and take a swim.

 

BIG MISTAKE!

I have never ever found any of those things in the hills in South Australia to this day!! 

As we rounded each corner of the winding  road up towards Mt Lofty, with those harsh nasty gum trees looking down at us sadistically, I glanced over into the back seat to look at my children. I saw three flaming red cheeked kids with moronic looks on their faces staring back at me……It was that look of, “ Why have you brought us kids to this God forsaken country, what terrible parents you turned out to be, we are definitely not your children? We are adopted that’s for sure!”

Eventually we did realise that the two words “barren” and “Australia” walk hand in hand. Disheartened and very hot we drove back home.

As the days and weeks progressed instead of going to the hills to look for lakes and rivers we headed in the opposite direction. We thought we would see what the coastline offered to this unfortunate family who were suffering badly from heat stroke.

 

OH MY GOODNESS…

Spectacular, beautiful and untouched stretches of beach, which were swimmable! Not too many beaches in NZ are beautiful and swimmable. Too cold, too rocky, too dangerous, too rough, too gloomy, or weather never permitting. You may be lucky to stumble upon a few sunny days in the middle of summer! 

 

WE FAST BECAME BEACH ADDICTS..

Those glorious blue beaches have found us surfing, fishing, swimming, boating, playing, and almost all year round I might add! 

I well remember when we first arrived here trying to put the golden sand into an envelope to send home to show them how amazing the beaches were. True story! (The sand in New Zealand is either non existent or grey.)

Early on with my first camera my photography was centred around photographing my sons surfing. Not a hint of hilly heat stroke on those long warm days spent at the beach with the waves continuously rolling in. Now I photograph  all aspects of the vast blue sea, which changes day to day and moment by moment. Variety and beauty endlessly! It is a genuine privilige to be able to photograph the South Australian coastline.

TODAY….

Whenever we have spent a day at the beach and evening approaches I have created a habit, as I leave any of our beaches, I stop and look back at the ocean and ponder and thank God for the genius of His creation. The beaches so idyllic, I will always miss my homeland but I have found something wonderful to replace those nostalgic longings.

Calm blue sea water
Isolated beach with white umbrella

Above,

This beach is about 2 kms long, I had it all to myself on a glorious summers day last January, crystal clear water and golden sand, no flies and warm weather, what more could a woman want?

Yacht in the summertime

The bluest of blue!

Yacht moored in pink sunset
Fishing boat staying out till the end of the day.

Above,

A boat stays out fishing till the sun sets and the gulls have gone home.

Swimming in Salmon inlet shaded such a brilliant green.

Above,

Swimming in this effervescent green water. Located at the back of Althorpe Island, South Australia, we discovered this unique spot on one of our fishing trips, quite remarkable in its colour and location. You can read my other blog about Salmon Inlet HERE 

Massive cliffs in the setting sun. Cape Spencer

Enormous cliffs tower over the breaking seas. Cape Spencer, Yorke Peninsula.

Stenhouse jetty

Stenhouse jetty.

Surfer jumping

Surfers, sailors, swimmers and sunbakers they all love it!

Surfing at West Cape, Yorke Peninsula
Turquoise beach and waves rolling in
Ethels beach and a pink sunset
At the beach till midnight

The water is warm as is the air temperature. In the image above it is New Years Eve  and these boys walked the beach till midnight in bathers and bare chests.

South Australia is a vast and hot country, a unique environment which definitely takes some getting used to. There will be many challenges to face. Initially I missed family and friends, we struggled to succeed in a new business venture and my children were extremely unsettled, but the hot dry weather, the lack of inland water and mountains. definitely had the most profound effect on us all. 
Today some 30 years later I love the place, can’t get enough of the beaches and strangely I have learnt to also love and appreciate the inland areas. The fields, the farms, the desert, the outback all have a beauty of their own. There is a huge variety of landscapes to photograph and as time has gone by I have noticed I am never bored with my photography.  Still hate the heat, but hey, who enjoys 40 degrees?

If I can encourage anyone on this journey, slow down and get an air conditioner, (first things first) so you can think straight and make good decisions for your future. You will ,  as you perservere find a very beautiful and very majestical country.

Locating Yorke Peninsula’s lone apostle.

Locating Yorke Peninsula’s lone apostle.

Embarking on a walk over the towering cliffs of the south end of Yorke Peninsula, we made a journey to try and discover the one lone apostle. A lonely fisherman had reported seeing this legendary rock from his boat in the ocean. But no land living creature, that we knew, had ever pointed out this amazing discovery to us.

Did we really have an apostle? Victoria had twelve, (Yeah right!! There are really only eight and rumour has it, there never, ever were twelve, it was simply a marketing ploy.)

Could South Australia possibly have just one for a few isolated adventurers like me and my husband?
Well we were about to find out!
We felt like the explorers of old….phone, water, sun hat, insect repel, camera, good shoes, snake protectors etc.

I think the explorers of old had note paper instead of a camera, old boots instead of good Nike trekking shoes, kerosene as insect repellent, and as the movies depict they always lost their water on the way so almost died of thirst!!

No dying on the journey for us we’re far too clever and modern.

Cliffs South Australian coastline

Above…looking forward along the coastline

South Australian coastline

Looking back you can see the West Cape light house way in the distance.

Coastline
Coastline South Australia

And there it is in all its glory. We found it!

Green sea water

Looking down.

Coastline South Australia
Coastline South Australia
Rough countryside
The lone Apostle South Australia
Waiting for the surf to come up

Yeah that way mate!

Two kangaroos
Rough terrain
The lone apostle
Beautiful rock formation

TIME TAKEN: Just under one hour to walk there, 30 minutes of taking photos and resting. Basically it took the best part of two and a half hours.

APOSTLE LOCATED: Yes bought a tear to my eye… majestical.

LIVING CREATURES: One shingle back lizard and quite a few kangaroos, and crows.

SIGNS OF HUMAN ACTIVITY: Not a single beer bottle, or cigarette butt, or foot print, now that’s worth seeing!

YES, South Australia does have an Apostle, difficult to find, but picturesque and worth the walk!

When things go wrong on the journey..an adventure down to Echoes

When things go wrong on the journey..an adventure down to Echoes

Beautiful beach

Revisiting beautiful Echoes beach with cliffs so high,  but sometimes things can go wrong.

 

 

The image above was taken many years ago with my old Pentax camera. One of my children lies under the umbrella, surfboards and clothes lying on the ground. Days we shall never forget.

In our early years when camping, surfing and holidaying at Marion Bay, we frequented a beautiful isolated beach. The beach was called Echoes, because of the sound the waves made as they whispered and echoed up against the gigantic cliffs this beach is surrounded by. It fast became one of our favorite spots due to its isolation and the good surf.

Recently the governing bodies, whoever they maybe, decided the descent to this beach was too dangerous and so the 3km road to the beach and the beach itself are closed  and consequently completely overgrown now.

One bright and sunny day we decided we would walk the distance and visit this most spectacular and beautiful beach for old time sake. 

Armed with packs, cameras and food etc, we set off. All good the first hour, but on arrival at the cliffs edge we noted how the old track we had used, was definitely in a much worse condition than before. 

Then as fate would turn on us, my vision went fuzzy and blurry, I was getting a migraine. Usually these gave me a headache, followed by vomiting and feeling very ill. Well we sat on the top of the cliff and waited till I could see again. I took some pain relievers. 

I was not giving up, no sickness would stop me from visiting my old beloved beach. 

So down we scrambled, fell, jumped, hopped, toppled, until we finally made the beach. My legs were like jelly, so I lay down on the golden sand and slept for about 30 mins.

When I awoke my husband had been swimming and so we both idled away the afternoon swimming, listening to the echoes and chatting and resting. 

I would need all my energy to climb back up that cliff.

I did consider how silly we had been and this was probably quite a dangerous undertaking.

As we lay there looking out to sea a small boating vessel passed by, they stopped and peered in at us and we distinctly heard them say. “How on earth did those people get to that beach?”

If I could have yelled back, I may have said, “Sometimes people are silly and insist on taking the track less travelled!”

Most of the afternoon I did keep pondering how on earth we were going to get back up the cliff, especially in my weakened state.

Three o’clock and departure time finally arrived.

We stood back and planned out our route, I gritted my teeth and I used all of my strength to slowly crawl my way back up the cliff. We helped each other over difficult spots and clung to branches or anything secure as we ascended. Exhausted we reached the top and took a drink and rest, however we still had a long walk back. 

As we walked along and time went by I seemed to gather new strength and felt amused at our exploratory activities, maybe as we are getting older we should not take such risks….oh what the heck…”Man who sit and do nothing, experience no excitement in life!”

Cliffs Echoes beach

The image above is of the cliffs that we climbed down and then up again!!

Photography can take you on many unexpected and exciting adventures. Planning is a key, but sometimes situations can develop that throw you off guard. I had to rest to get my strength back to climb that hill.

I actually did take photographs even though my vision was blurry for an hour. We survived and want to go back to this spot again. Maybe we need to rething all our stratagies!