Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
One of life’s great pleasures: to stand in sunshine, watching a storm form on the far side of a bay or lake.
It often includes a superb, entirely natural “light show”.
It is especially splendid when one is standing on the sands of Little Beach, looking across Two Peoples Bay, to Mt Manypeaks.
Leave a CommentA few of my favourite things…
Unusually white sand that squeaks when bare feet walk across it.
Unpolluted, refreshing cool, brilliantly blue water.
Magnificent vistas in which other humans and built structures are nowhere in sight, or just a small presence in an otherwise natural environment.
Anyone who loves the above – especially when they all co-exist in a place that is not hard to reach – will surely love the south coast of Western Australia.
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This and the next several chapters in this series all feature wet sand.
Today’s post also has oystercatchers, in “reflective” mode.
Both of the relevant strands are on the northern edge of the Southern Ocean, according to most Australians.
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This post’s heroes are fine festive season role models: relaxed, well-fed…and not too house-proud.
And, unlike reindeer, Pelecanus conspicillatus – the Australian Pelican – has never been co-opted by Coca-Cola!
Pelican Yoga sends best wishes to you all.
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By their very nature, sandy soils are “poor” – low in nutrients and unable to retain much moisture.
Yet in some places where rain often falls and the sun often shines – including some of Amazonia and parts of the world’s largest sand island – rainforest flourishes.
That island is Australian. (Queensland’s Fraser Island/K’gari)
So too is this post’s sandy, “desert” location, which is circa 900 kilometres distant from any ocean’s shore.
Even an ignoramus would never mistake the Simpson Desert for rainforest, but s/he would almost certainly be hugely surprised to discover just how beautifully vegetated is so much of it. (as are a great many other sandy, “arid” Australian places)
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“Rippled sand + moving water + rock” is one of my favourite natural “recipes”, especially when other humans and human-made structures are not part of the “mix”… or are only a tiny, discreet element.
“Remote” ocean beaches are not the only places that offer such delight.
The pictured location is much more than 1,000 kilometres straight-line-distant from any ocean shore – and there is absolutely no “straight line” (let alone “same-day”) transport route to one.
By definition, when a river flows through a valley that bears its name, that river’s bed is the lowest ground within the local landscape.
The pictured low spot – just a little upstream of where this river flows into one of the world’s most significant rivers – is more than 2,700 metres above sea level.
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“White Sand Lake” is the most common (in English) of many and various names applied to this particular lake and/or its dunes or “dune mountain/s”.
To my knowledge, nowhere else on “our” planet is quite like it.
The alleged altitude of this Chinese lake’s surface is also “many and various”, but it appears to be at least 3,300 metres – approximately 11,000 feet – above sea level.
It sits right beside/below the Karakoram Highway, about 150 kilometres southwest of Kashgar (aka “Kashi”) in Xinjiang,
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This post’s featured image is far from great, but it does show a particularly surprising place.
I took the photo through “our” vehicle’s tinted window, as we zoomed past the pictured dunes at 5.09 pm on 22 October 2019.
Nearby, was a very large, salty lake.
The nearest ocean shore was circa 1500 kilometres distant, in a straight line.
No “straight line” transport connects to that shore; reaching the nearest ocean beach would require an arduous one-way journey of circa 2,000 kilometres.
Unsurprisingly, this particular vicinity is sparsely populated.
However, when I took the photo we were just 100 or so kilometres distant from a metropolis which is home to at least two million people; we would reach it before nightfall.
Q: where in Africa were we?
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In this series’ first six chapters all relevant sands were either on beaches, or in locations still not far from an ocean’s shoreline.
The next several posts take us inland, and to higher altitudes.
Australians – well, those who have travelled well west of the Great Dividing Range – are familiar with the “red” sands/sandy soils that are a feature of much of our “Outback”.
Q: what makes them red?
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Q #1: what is the pictured jellyfish-like fragment from a (presumably) recently-deceased marine creature?
A: I do not know.
Q #2: upon what has it “washed up”, in very shallow water?
A: sand, obviously.
(on Lights Beach, at eastern end of William Bay National Park, on Western Australia’s south coast)
Bigger question: what is sand, exactly?
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