Just a single photo for a change, a sunset on the Swan River in Perth, Western Australia. Taken earlier in the summer while catching up one evening with my niece and her fiance who live in one of Perth’s inner suburbs. I head over to Western Australia again in early March for another holiday so I’ll categorise this post as an exercise in re-acclimatisation!
Where was I?
From an earlier trip to Western Australia…
And some more Photo Morsel sunsets…
One of my nearby beachside suburbs in Adelaide is Glenelg. Located at the end of the tram line from Adelaide’s city centre, Glenelg has long been a popular spot for both Adelaide residents and visitors to spend time down at the seaside. For me, in summer particularly, it’s a great spot for some sunset and dusk photography and I find myself down there from time to time with camera in hand.
Back in January, I started a month long photo challenge at a photography website I frequent. The idea of the challenge is to nominate a particular lens and then, with that lens, take and post a photo every day through that month. Sounds easy, but keeping up the discipline can be surprisingly challenging as the month wears on. My January challenge failed miserably after only a week or so, but I did get some nice photos of Glenelg at dusk along the way.
While the Glenelg foreshore area provides a few different subjects and scenes for the photographer, on the evening of my visit I concentrated on the jetty and those promenading along it.
The first five of the following images were taken with my challenge lens for the month, an old (as in late 70’s/early 80’s) Pentax M 35mm F2.0 lens mounted on my Pentax K-3 camera.
So, here we go:
Yorke Peninsula lies across the Gulf St Vincent from Adelaide and in a similar way to Italy is shaped much like a leg and foot, but much smaller at around 200 km in length. My prior post took a look at the setting sun at Moonta Bay which lies at the very top of the peninsula, at the ‘hip’ as it were.
Travelling down the peninsula by road you eventually arrive right down the far ‘toe’ end. From Moonta Bay, it’s a 2½ hour drive, and 4 hours or so if travelling directly from Adelaide. Rugged Cape Spencer and West Cape define the toe and for this post I’m featuring sunsets again, this time at West Cape.
The two capes are within the Innes National Park and around 20 minutes drive from the last township on the peninsula, Marion Bay (which has previously featured on Photo Morsels in A wet and rainy day in Marion Bay).
The images in this post were taken in July last year (2014) which is mid winter down here in Australia. Despite that, the weather while I was there was fine and mild.
In sailing ship days, ships approaching from England and Europe would make landfall in the general vicinity of the capes and enter Investigator Strait in order to proceed to Adelaide. This would have been the first land those ships had seen since rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the base of Africa. Combine the navigational challenges associated with a journey of some 10,000 kilometers without any land observations, the presence of islands and reefs, strong tides and notoriously rough and windy weather on the wrong day, and the area soon became a shipwreck coast. To improve maritime safety, lighthouses were established as early as 1879.
West Cape beach in the late afternoon, with shadow formed by the West Cape headland extending into the dunes. The patch of clear water perpendicular to the beach is a powerful rip carrying water deposited on the beach by the swell back into deeper water. Definitely not a swimming beach, and only experienced surfers look to surf here.
I’m sitting at home tonight with the first fire of the 2015 winter imparting the pleasant and satisfying warmth that only a wood fire can generate.
It only seemed like a few weeks ago South Australia was enjoying the transition from summer to autumn which weather-wise is undoubtedly the most pleasant time of the year along the southern side of Australia. For this post I’m revisiting one of those balmy late summer evenings.
Just before Easter I traveled up to Moonta Bay, a popular holiday location on the upper Yorke Peninsula some 160 kilometers (100 miles) from Adelaide for an overnight stay. During the day, cloud cover made the light quite unattractive for photography, but as the sun dropped low into the sky, things got a bit more interesting.
Puddling about.
We had a somewhat warm day in Adelaide today, 45.1°C (113ºF). Our fourth hottest day on record, bumping into fifth place the 45.0°C recorded just one year ago on 4th January 2013.
Our all time record is 46.1°C (115°F) recorded back in 1939, the day before the infamous Black Friday fires broke out across the border in Victoria. This Thursday’s forecast is for 46°C, so it is quite possible later this week that we will have the hottest day ever recorded here.
Two weeks ago, there was an incredibly hot spell in the sparsely populated far north of South Australia. Temperatures of 48 to 49°C (118-120°F) were recorded for several days in succession. We were spared in the south, with quite cool weather coming in off the Southern Ocean.
So after a cool spring and early summer, it’s safe to say the heat has arrived with a vengeance.
On that hot evening last year I wandered down to the local beaches for a bit of heat relief and to seek out an ice cream. I took the camera with me to catch the end of the day down at Brighton beach. Tonight seems an appropriate time to share some of those images.
Photo Morsels 