Tag: Sand

Grand sands (#47 in series: Lake Eyre Basin [2 of 2] + musical bonus)

Published February 14, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#47 in series: Lake Eyre Basin [2 of 2] + musical bonus)

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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Grand sands (#46 in series: Lake Eyre Basin [1 of 2])

Published February 13, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#46 in series: Lake Eyre Basin [1 of 2])

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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Grand sands (#45 in series: idyllic beach, sans ocean)

Published February 12, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#45 in series: idyllic beach, sans ocean)

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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Grand sands (#44 in series: on “The Prom”, looking down from Mount Oberon)

Published February 10, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#44 in series: on “The Prom”, looking down from Mount Oberon)

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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Grand sands (#43 in series: atop East Mount Barren, looking west)

Published February 8, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#43 in series: atop East Mount Barren, looking west)

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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Grand sands (#42 in series: atop East Mount Barren, looking east)

Published February 7, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#42 in series: atop East Mount Barren, looking east)

Q: what do the mostly-grey, stark rocks atop East Mt Barren have in common with the mostly-white sands that are a feature of so many beaches on Western Australia’s south coast?

A: both are composed almost entirely of the second most abundant mineral in the earth’s crust, namely….

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Grand sands (#41 in series: dunes, devouring forest & wetlands)

Published February 4, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#41 in series: dunes, devouring forest & wetlands)

20 kilometres southwest of Pemberton, in southwestern WA’s “Karri country”, the Yeagarup Dunes cover circa 30 square kilometres.

They are the Southern Hemisphere’s largest mobile, land-locked dune system.

The Yeagarup Dunes are currently advancing inland at circa 4 metres per year.

This post’s photos were taken from the top of their “hungry” edge, on 27 October 2016.

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Grand sands (#40 in series: “looking down” on prostrate plants [2 of 2])

Published February 2, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#40 in series: “looking down” on prostrate plants [2 of 2])

Collectively and individually, members of the genus Banksia are among the world’s more spectacular and surprising flowering plants.

If one accepts the reclassification that brought the 94 Dryandra species into the Banksia fold, the genus has circa 170 members; if one does not, there are 79 named Banksia species.

Either way, all but one species are endemic to Australia.

The overwhelming majority naturally occur only in Western Australia, and most of those have very small ranges, in near-coastal parts of WA’s southwest.

Even by Banksia standards, the six prostratae species are “wondrous strange”.

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Grand sands (#39 in series: “looking down” on prostrate plants [1 of 2])

Published January 31, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#39 in series: “looking down” on prostrate plants [1 of 2])

This chapter’s hero is another of the enormous number of WA-endemic flowering plants that thrive in Cape Arid National Park.

Most “wildflowers” position their actual flowers well clear of the ground.

In Australia’s southwestern corner, however, some of the region’s plants are “prostrate” – their flowers may sit on the sand, literally.

If you look carefully at the featured image you will notice that the nearer, otherwise-strikingly-red flowers are sand-flecked.

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Grand sands (#38 in series: “looking down” from/at Belinup Hill, Cape Arid N.P.)

Published January 29, 2025 by Pelidoug

Grand sands (#38 in series: “looking down” from/at Belinup Hill, Cape Arid N.P.)

Yes, the beach really is that white, and the ocean shallows’ shades of blue are also “true”.

(the various blues’ intensity is in large part thanks to the sand’s whiteness, acting in concert with the sun, high in a clear sky)

The featured image looks down (and east, over Yokinup Bay, to Mt Arid) from Belinup Hill in Cape Arid National Park; visible, “naked” sand occupies a small portion of the photo, but millions of tons of “hidden” sand are invisibly-present through most of its field of view.

Southern WA has some of the world’s poorest soils, but what grows in and “hides” those very sands is (arguably) “our” planet’s greatest natural wildflower “show”.

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