Natural splendour, real musics, wines, wordpower
In a “normal” year this 21.12.2020 post would be coming to you from right next door to South Australia’s Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park, where I took the photo on 21 December 2017.
Conifers mostly hail from the other hemisphere, but none of their “Christmassy” cones are lovelier than this Australian species’ “cones”.
One CommentAdapted from a “pagan” winter solstice rite, Christmas began in the Northern Hemisphere.
Australians enthusiastically celebrate “the festive season”, even though our December 25 weather is almost guaranteed to be “inappropriate”.
Our plants are “all wrong” too…or are they?
Comments closed“Our” planet’s water surfaces are all shifting, always.
This reality is not always readily apparent.
It is, however, strikingly evident when one looks across a substantial intertidal zone when the tide is “out”.
This post’s musical component is Surface Level III – a particularly beautiful piece from Appearance, Chris Abrahams’ 2020 solo piano album.
Comments closedIf you come across corellas in a big city, chances are excellent that you are in Perth or Adelaide, that there a great many of them, they are making a lot of noise, and you can easily see that they are doing a lot of damage.
It is highly likely that the species in question is Cacatua sanguinea, the Little Corella.
Its Latin/“scientific” name means “bloodstained cockatoo” – a reference to its pink markings, between eye and bill.
This species has proved “too adaptable”.
One CommentWilliam Bay National Park is less than half an hour’s easy drive, west from Denmark.
Its two much-instagrammed, “iconic” attractions are Greens Pool and the almost-adjoining Elephant Rocks.
Ludicrously, the two “icons” are the only places where most visitors to William Bay National Park ever set foot.
Madfish Bay is also magnificent, dead-easy to reach, often deserted, and only a few minutes away from the oft-thronged/overcrowded Greens Pool!
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(this post includes photographic advice and a musical bonus)
Officially, Perth’s November 21 2020 sunset occurred at 6.59 pm.
Effectively, on the west side of Lake Monger, the sun had set some minutes earlier, thanks to the (modest) hill/stabilised dune which rises behind the lake’s western side.
Where I took the featured image, the golden hour’s most magical moment was at 6.43 pm.
One CommentIt is pleasingly hard to believe that such wonderfully wild, unspoilt shoreline could be so very easy to reach.
All photos copyright Doug Spencer, 14 September 2020.
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Around one hour’s easy drive south from Pemberton, via Northcliffe, you meet the Southern Ocean at Windy Harbour.
To the east, hulking over its sheltered bay and its little collection of shacks and camping ground/caravan park, is Point D’Entrecasteaux.
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The featured image (all photos copyright Doug Spencer, 27 October 2016) was taken from Yeagarup Beach, circa 30 kilometres from Pemberton.
The Southern Ocean’s shore was just behind me, as I gazed across the Warren River’s lowermost section.
To get there, we had driven through some of Australia’s most beautiful “virgin” tall Eucalypt forest, then crossed the Southern Hemispere’s largest land-locked mobile dune system.
Comments closedThis series will showcase Western Australia’s southernmost shoreline – from the mouth of the Warren River, through to Point Ann.
In most of the world “magnificent, wild, uncrowded, not even one house within sight” and “easily reached” are mutually exclusive categories.
Not here!
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