Both photos were taken late on a winter’s afternoon, near Margaret River.
Running on sand, through shallow water, is a pleasure enjoyed by many humans, horses and dogs.
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Vive la différence!
Goolwa does not aspire to be “the Saint-Tropez of the Southern Hemisphere”.
No wannabe “Brigitte Bardot” is ever likely to strut, mince or pout her way along this strand.
“Chic” and “Goolwa” are two words I have never seen or heard within the same sentence.
However, I am sure the “relaxed and contented” index is very much higher on its ocean beach than on any “Riviera” strand.
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Hoteliers and tour operators like to describe the pictured beach as “idyllic”.
Ifaty is a village in southwestern Madagascar; fishing is its raison d’être., although tourism has become increasingly significant in recent years.
Its seafront “lagoon” is sheltered by one of the world’s major coral reefs.
On the reef’s far side is the Mozambique Channel, which is 1,700 ks long, 419 ks wide at its narrowest point, and surprisingly deep – up to nearly 3,300 metres, with an average depth of around 2,700 metres.
I took the photo just before midday on 19 May 2018, as the big daily event was unfolding.
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Both photos were taken about twenty minutes after we had flown over the wreck of the Eduard Bohlen.
Less than half an hour later we would be back in Swakopmund, after our late afternoon 600 k flight over the Namib Desert’s “sand sea”.
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#41 in this series showed a sand dune “eating” forest in Australia’s southwestern “corner”, a few kilometres from the Indian Ocean,.
This chapter sees a shipwreck being devoured by the Namib Desert, adjacent to the Atlantic coast of Southern Africa.
Above and below, you are looking at what remains of the Eduard Bohlen.
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Many millions of years before any words were spoken on “our” planet, it was already being “adorned”, “painted” and “sculpted” by the greatest of all “abstract artists”.
Relative to a human’s lifespan – or an empire’s or a civilisation’s – some of Nature’s creations are “permanent”.
Others are “ephemeral”, even fleeting.
Uluru is “permanent”, a crisp morning’s hoar frost is “fleeting”.
In an arid landscape, the interactions between sand, wind and water can produce particularly beautiful “abstracts”.
Most of these “artworks” are ephemeral or fleeting.
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Even a flat, harsh, arid landscape – the kind some humans regard as “ugly” or “boring”, when they experience it only at ground level – is likely to prove “amazing” and “beautiful” to the very same humans, if ever they fly over it.
This “revelation” is very nearly an inevitability if the relevant aircraft flies when the sun is “low”.
One winter morning in 2023 my beloved and I flew over just such a landscape – the one in which sits Australia’s most extensive lake.
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Desirable qualities in a beach:
1. A glorious, entirely natural setting, not ruined by “development”.
2: Uncrowded, clean sand.
3: Unpolluted water in which to swim.
4: An abundance of sunshine and shade.
5: A location within two hours’ 2WD driving distance of comfortable accommodation and decent dining.
In this instance, all five qualities are present, notwithstanding the fact that the nearest ocean beach is more than 1,5000 kilometres away.
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Wilsons Promontory is as far south – 39°00′48″ – as mainland Australia goes:
Its “convenient” location – a whisker more than 200 ks southeast of Melbourne – ensures that a great many people do go to “the Prom”.
Still, if one avoids weekends and school holidays, and one gets more than a kilometre away from the National Park’s hub/quasi-town at Tidal River, one’s “Prom” experience is unlikely to be afflicted by overcrowding.
Its magnificence is readily apparent, substantially intact, and there are many excellent and varied walking trails.
Both of this post’s photos were taken from the summit of Mount Oberon, 558 metres ASL
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Sitting 450 metres ASL, atop Mount Barren at 9:43 am on 21 September 2021, all land within my westward field of a view – and very much more, well beyond it – was part of Fitzgerald River National Park.
To the west, the nearest coastal town was Bremer Bay, just outside the National Park’s western boundary.
Were I able to fly, Bremer Bay would be 80 kilometres distant from my vantage point.
By road, the distance is nearly twice that – the near-coast road only extends a few kilometres west of East Mount Barren
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