Playing Catch-up With Myself: July 14

 

July 14

Here's an "awwwww" factor that's right off the scale. Just too cute: Roos on the trail to Punchbowl Lookout, yesterday. Dave Downes and I had already taken a good hike at the Onkaparinga Wetlands, and rather than coming straight home, we went up to Punchbowl ... by some miracle, it wasn't cold, and wasn't raining, so -- make the most of it, right?

You often see roos and joeys on the hike through to the Punchbowl Lookout, and sometimes a big male, too. But they're not so often close to the trail itself, and when they are, they're (wisely) wary of humans, and tend to take off fast. These didn't ... result, I got some lovely pictures!

It's deep midwinter now ... which means, in Australia, the world is green again, water is flowing, and we're waiting for flowers to bloom in the woodland.

In fact, next post will "The Colours of Winter, 2022."

How to empty out a reservoir ... Mount Bold, Clarendon and the river

How do you empty out a reservoir? This is the challenge at Mount Bold right now, where the dam is due for a major "safety" upgrade. It must be couple of years ago when Dave and I were there, and a knot of guys in hardhats were clustered in a bunch, talking in undertones and looking ... concerned. About that time, SA Water lowered the level in the reservoir, took it waaaay down, and now -- well, this, from the SA Water website:

"Mount Bold Reservoir Reserve will be temporarily closed to visitors from Monday 4 May for around three to four weeks, while we use heavy equipment and machinery on site, as part of early investigative works for a dam safety upgrade.

The water level at Mount Bold has been lowered to enable this part of the project to be undertaken, and there will be an opportunity for the public to view a near empty reservoir from usual access areas, following the completion of the works."

Cool. But how do you empty out the reservoir, down to zero, without flooding something or someone? The answer --

Carefully! You work out what the river can carry at one time, open the spills juuust enough ... and the result is a full river (which you very seldom see), and some picturesque views. Make the most of it ... soon enough, the river will be back to reed beds and levels so low, it can be more like a chain of unconnected ponds.

We'd heard the news, and went to Riverbend Park, behind Clarendon, on Tuesday, to take a look...

...and yes, I'm loving the Lumix camera. It's not just that it's s light and easy to carry in (and use with) one hand, but it also captures excellent images. 20MP is a godsend. 

Posting to the other blog: stand by to teleport...

Dave and I took a hike around the Onkaparinga wetlands -- aka Perrybend Point -- the other day. I post-processed the pictures and did a rather nice blog post. I was just about to cross-post it here, and in the nick of time thought ... why would you bother? So (!) instead of cross-posting the whole thing, I'm just going to upload a couple of Teaser shots, and give you the link. Please do take a look -- it's a lovely place, and a very pretty post on the travel blog.

The other thing worth mentioning here is that I've been astonished at the traffic Meander to the Max is attracting. One post in particular (Halls Gap: Under the Mountain) is at 1,022 hits and counting. Others are way up in the high hundreds, which isn't too shabby for a private travel journal!

So, here's your link the the post, Wetlands Rule at Onkaparinga's Perrybend point. Enjoy!

Now, I'm delving into the photos from last week's expedition to Belair NP. There was this cheeky kookaburra who smelled fish, and came to roost in the rafters overhead, at the Pines pavilion...

And a couple of teaser shots, to whet your appetite:

In the lull in the storm --

Dave and I couldn't resist heading over to have a look at the sea, in the lull in the storm, and I grabbed the camera on the way out the door. Heading down Beach Road, the view was dramatic before you even reached the Esplanade --

Massive waves crashing at the end of Beach Road.

We parked and stepped out into the teeth of a 30mph wind. You could lean on it, and it was extremely cold -- colder than Jen had expected, since it's actually not cold at all when you're not right on the coast. The waves really were massive:

Huge waves off Adelaide's metropolitan beaches.

 Looking south across Noarlunga Bay, you were impressed by just how these coasts are being hammered:

Noarlunga Bay being pounded yet again. September 2016.

Spume piles up, in some areas right onto the boardwalks ... the sea is breaking at your feet.

And of course, "it's an ill wind," as they say. The surfers are happy. They were still arriving in many places along the shore by the time we'd had enough...

Surfer at Christies Beach

Good for him. Meanwhile, Dave and I were just about to call it, and one of us was growing very cold indeed. Another photographer was on the boardwalk, getting essentially the same photos, and he and Dave traded off, so we all have snapshots of each other to mark the occasion:

Dave and Jen in the lull in the big storm, September 2016.

And by this point, it was time for hot chocolate -- seriously! Fortunately, we were only a matter of minutes from a safehaven:

Beck's Bakehouse

And Beck's Bakehouse has a very nice line in hot chocolate. Notice how bundled-up the other patrons are, in the background of this shot:

Hot chocolate. Life saver.

Delicious. Suitably revived, it was time to head back out into the wind and the chill of the foreshore...

Portrait of the photographer, in the car window. 30mph is blowing out here!

The wild weather is not good for seabirds. Populations nest at the mouth of the Onkaparinga River, and the site is taking a beating. Many gulls have given up and gone inland, where they're roosting with pigeons beside swollen and still-rising creeks. These, below, are toughing it out, but they're swirling around by the thousand, in barely organized chaos:

Silver gulls flocking at the Onkaparinga outfall

 And before anyone relaxes, just take a look into the south, or southwest (below). Uh huh, we're weathering up again. The rain began before we were home, and the local creeks are rising rapidly...

Weathering up again, ready for the next wave of this storm.

That's it for this episode.  I'll sign out with a windblown selfie, in the car, somewhere out there in the arctic wilds!

 The photographer in person.

Cleaning up flood damage ... while the sun shines

The day after the high winds and torrential rains Dave and I went south along the coast to check out conditions as the bad weather blew over.

One day after, the rivers were still right up to the roads in many cases. The "water over road" signs were still out, and you saw the lakes of mud where cascades had streamed across, but mostly -- mostly -- folks are down to a clean-up job, while emergency services work on removing broken trees. The good thing is, the community has come out in force, in the hardest-hit areas, to help people who've been underwater. One can only imagine what it must be like to be very old, or sick, or both, and have cold, mucky water rising around your knees and ruining everything you possess. The thought makes you shudder.

But in those hardest-hit areas, it'll to take a lot longer to fix the damage. I've borrowed this image from the ABC news website ...

Full credit to ABC News -- their copyright etc. 

...that is, or rather was, Montacute road. The floods must have washed out the foundations and the road collapsed. This one will take months to fix. If you'd like to read the whole story online, you'll find it here ... and one of their pictures was also on the front page of the state's newspaper:

Normally, Koalas don't pay much attention to rain. They live in the tops of trees and just dig in with their three-inch claws and go right back to sleep. But when the trees are really thrashing, they'll probably have to come down -- or perhaps this little guy was in a tree that actually fell. Either way, he found himself swimming for it, and taking refuge on a fence post; a very bedraggled little thing indeed.

(One hopes Fauna Rescue managed to get him to high ground, make sure he's okay. What makes koalas' lives doubly hard is that in a matter of weeks our temperatures will be so high, the forest so dry, their problems are all about thirst and bushfires; and koalas aren't as highly mobile as kangaroos, who can just get up and go when they must. Still, koalas are more agile, and much faster, than you'd guess. We've seen them on the ground and bounding along. They also have no road sense, and in fact many country roads have "look out for koalas" signs. It's quite an experience when one strolls out in the road right in front of you, in the dead of night. Good job on the brakes, Dave!)

Credits to the ABC photographers for this shot, and the image of Montacute Road ... or rather, the yawning pit where Montacute Road ought to be! See the link above.

Further south and  on the coast, the damage was more about erosion -- dunes have been cut away. It takes years to build up a good, strong system of dunes to reclaim and stabilize some coastline. One of these "super storms," as they're calling it, can undo the work of decades. One wants to say, "Well, the dunes will build back up, as they did the first time." Left alone, yes, they would. But these "storm of the decade" events are coming through every year now, and sometimes two or three times per year. The old "storm of the decade" is now commonplace; which bodes ill for the dunes. Sigh.

Here we are, finding the Okaparinga River returned to its channel today, leaving the surrounds a quagmire...

Home -- looks like it's been snowing. Hail, like the last such pics I posed? Nope. Blossom. The trees are stripped.

We were lucky. We suffered no damage whatever, and the worst we can complain of is that the wild winds stripped the trees of spring blossom. It was only September 2, fourteen days ago, when I posted this. All gone now. Well ... botheration. But yes, we were lucky -- and grateful for it...

And then the sun shone, the clouds vamoosed over the horizon, and now it's warm and bright. Dang.

How high's the water, Mama?

"How high's the water, Mama?"

She said, "Stop asking stupid questions, kid -- get a bucket and start bailing."

I said, "But it's five feet high and rising, and I'm only four foot ten."

She said, "So wear the boots with the thick soles."

But seriously now, and with all due apologies to Johnny Cash --

THERE'S WATER IN IT!!

The Mt. Bold spillway at Clarendon, South Australia

So much rainfall in so short a time ... the Mount Bold Reservoir was spilling. The dam effectively stops the Onkaparinga River, so for much of its length a watercourse that must once have been half a mile wide is reduced to ponds. But once in a very long time there's so much rain --

The Onkaparings River, at River Bend Park, Clarendon

 -- the river runs again. I've been here 46 years, and this is the first time I ever saw proper water in this riverbed, rather than just green puddles. While I was getting these pictures I spoke to an older gent who had a very, very nice camera kit (Canon EOS, drool, drool) ... he also was photographing the event, while scores of locals showed up to gawk. According to the photographer, the last time this river ran like this was the year his son as born. And his kid is 37.

Mature trees have grown up in the riverbed since the last time it ran -- and some look like they're being washed away. Wouldn't be surprised if the city doesn't have to take some out soon, after the floodwaters have gone down...

Meanwhile, undaunted, parrots are nesting in River Bend Park's trees ... we've been wondering if we were going to get an early spring. The mimosa is already going berserk (kerchoo!) though it didn't bloom till late August and early September in the recent past. We still have a month of winter to go, but it's as if plants and animals are getting an early start, perhaps because the land itself knows summer will be a beast, and whatever you're going to do, you better do it before the fun starts...

The sun broke through as Dave and I headed back to the car -- wouldn't you know it? You always do 90% of your photography in overcast, crappy conditions, and juuuust as you get back in the car the clouds part and the sun shines! Dang. Try again. |

And yes, more rain is forecast. So -- Cue Johnny Cash...