Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
Pelican Yoga briefly interrupts its ongoing celebration of autumn 2024 on the Coorong, to celebrate the arrival of spring, in Perth.
Western Australian wildflowers are not fussed about calendars, nor European-derived notions of “the four seasons”.
Four days before the alleged end of winter, in Shenton Bushland it was abundantly evident that spring had already “sprung”.
Kangaroo Paws are now easy to see, as are some (not all, yet) of the “spring-flowering” orchids.
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The (constantly-shifting) mouth of the Murray-Darling river system is also the Coorong’s mouth.
If the Murray is “roaring”, its “fresh” water “flushes” the Coorong – Australia’s longest lagoon; if it is not “roaring”, the combined forces of incoming ocean water and evaporation of the lagoon’s water make the Coorong progressively more saline.
The Coorong’s southern lagoon – a long way south of the Murray – is usually hypersaline.
This post’s photos were both taken from the Coorong’s northern part, looking at the Pullen Spit, and across it to the Southern Ocean.
In effect, the Pullen Spit is the northern bank of the Murray’s mouth.
Comments closedSurrounded by many tiny birds (dotterels, I think) is a solitary example of the bird with the biggest bill of them all.
Almost immediately on our entering the northern (Murray mouth);end of the Coorong it was abundantly evident that we were witnessing “boom time”.
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The European carp which infest and degrade the Murray-Darling River system are disdained by most Australian human eaters of fish.
For a seal at Goolwa, however, a carp is a “highly-desirable, easily-caught meal”.
The recent “flood years” have flushed and funnelled umpteen millions of European carp through the Goolwa Barrage’s opened gates.
If long-nosed fur seals could speak English, they’d probably describe the Goolwa Barrage’s current hunting and dining “scene” as akin to “shooting fish in a barrel”.
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As regular readers would already know, the Coorong is one of our favourite places.
This series is the fruit of our most recent visit, on 13 March 2024.
In the wake of the 2022-23 floods – which produced the Murray-Darling river system’s biggest flows in many years – the Coorong was enjoying better overall “”health” than had been the case over the preceding several decades.
Most tourist visitors enter the Coorong via the Goolwa Barrage, where this series begins.
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Amalfi’s town square is immediately in front of – and below – the cathedral.
We had just been uninvited “guests” (but welcomed) at a big, cheerful Italian wedding.
There was no shortage of invited guests, but once they stepped down into the (very public) square they were comprehensively outnumbered by tourists.
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The featured image captures the moment when the wedding photographers’ barrage had just ceased, at 6.21 pm.
Now relaxed, the wedding party was about to descend the steps from the cathedral to Amalfi’s town square.
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At 6.20 pm on 07 September 2023, the wedding party’s group photos were taken.
I was standing several steps below the front of the cathedra, on my right-hand side of the steps.
As is obvious in my photo, the “official” wedding photographers were all standing well to my left.
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Shortly before the “proper” wedding photographers set to organising the wedding party’s “group” photos, I descended a few of the cathedral’s stairs.
I dislike posed, “1,2,3 – everybody, say cheese!” photographs, and am usually bored witless by them.
However, watching what goes on around the taking of such photos is another story – often, a much more interesting one.
As you’ll see in this series’ next chapter, the amused “boy blue” – “off camera”, or so he imagined, at the moment that only my camera was pointed at him – would soon be summoned to the top of the stairs, along with other members of the wedding party.
The photo below looks up, shortly before the “proper” photographers and wedding party were ready for the “group” picture-taking.
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At 6.18 pm on 07 September 2023 the newly-weds looked out into the early evening air, and down to the large number of wedding guests who had spilled out onto the cathedral’s steps and across the near edge of Amalfi’s town square.
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