Australia (not WA) – Page 9

Port River (#3 in series: Red Cosmos)

Published March 29, 2024 by Pelidoug

There is nothing Socialist – let alone Communist – about this Red Cosmos.

The bulk carrier of that name was launched in 2015, and has since made more than a few trips to Port Adelaide – all with capitalist intent.

Also a fiction: the vessel’s purported home port.

Majuro is purely a “flag of convenience”; such “false flags” are deployed by most ship-owners.

They are a key part of their efforts to minimise expenditure, to maximise their profits and to evade any legal “liability” in relation to “accidents”, and to mistreatment of employees.

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Port River (#2 in series: lighthouse)

Published March 27, 2024 by Pelidoug

Port River (#2 in series: lighthouse)

A particularly vivid childhood memory: visiting one of the woolstores in Port Adelaide, to see some of our family farm’s wool on display, prior to its auction.

At the time – circa 1960 – Port Adelaide’s woolstores were the world’s largest; the one I walked into was by far the biggest and most impressive man-made space I had ever seen.

Port Adelaide’s lighthouse – pictured above and below – pre-dated any of those woolstores.

Like them, this much more modest structure long ago lost its original raison d’être.

In recent decades, however, the lighthouse has been rather better looked after than have most of the woolstores.

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Port River (#1 in series: working port)

Published March 25, 2024 by Pelidoug

Port River (#1 in series: working port)

This post answers the question posed in the immediately-preceding one.

The relevant tidal creek is Adelaide’s Port River; its “official name” (which I have never heard anybody actually use, in conversation) is “Port Adelaide River”.

Dredged and much-modified/abused over the last 185 years, this tidal creek is the heart of Port Adelaide – South Australia’s primary seaport.

The Port River is the western branch of the largest estuary on the eastern side of Gulf St Vincent.

Just 14 kilometres southeast – and inland – is the heart of Adelaide’s CBD.

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Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: Fungi series’ beautiful finale + “weirdo” footnote

Published January 31, 2024 by Pelidoug

Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: Fungi series’ beautiful finale + “weirdo” footnote

The featured image was taken at 1.05 pm on 20 June 2023, in the final 15 minutes of a walk in Deep Creek National Park’s old growth stringybark forest.

This particular coral fungus fruiting body (and its particular positioning, midst leaf-litter – it was another “pushy bastard”/ “remover of obstacles”… or, in its case, an uplifter of them) was especially beautiful, I thought…and still do.

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Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: “technicolour”, hi-gloss ‘shrooms

Published January 30, 2024 by Pelidoug

Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: “technicolour”, hi-gloss ‘shrooms

I had never previously seen mushrooms with such spectacularly shiny, exquisitely coloured tops.

If you zoom in on/enlarge them, you should be able to enjoy some Dali-esque, distorted reflections of the old-growth stringybark forest’s canopy.

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Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: tough little mushroom

Published January 28, 2024 by Pelidoug

Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: tough little mushroom

Q: What does the appearance of this mushroom tell us about how it achieved its position and dimensions, as at 1. 07 pm on 20 June 2023?

A: I am not a mycologist, and my hunch/conclusions may be wrong, but….

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Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: edible, obviously

Published January 28, 2024 by Pelidoug

Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: edible, obviously

I have no idea whether a human could safely eat the pictured mushroom.

Clearly, however, at least one other fauna species relishes this fungus.

In any event, from a purely human-centric perspective, “edibility” is merely one of an enormous number of relevant descriptors of fungi species’ actual or potential uses.

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Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: edible/inedible…to whom?

Published January 27, 2024 by Pelidoug

Midwinter on the Fleurieu’s southern edge: edible/inedible…to whom?

In this particular instance, I do not know the answers to the headline’s questions.

Some fungi are “edible, generally”, some are “toxic, generally”, whilst others could be labelled as “it all depends on which fauna species attempts to eat it, and/or on how and when they eat it and/or on how much of it they eat, and/or on how they prepare it”.

If you look carefully, you can see a little fragment at the bottom, apparently broken off from the pictured coral fungus’s fruiting body.

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