Sunshine Coast Daily Photo

Sunday, 31 January 2010

Top Deck

The roof decks of these apartments are a popular spot late afternoon, they'd make an ideal spot to watch the storms coming across the sky from the south west.

Trying his luck.

Off to see what's biting.

Alexandra Headland.

Rockpools
skywatch reflections

The rock pools at Alex at a murky time of day. Overcast, high humidity and late afternoon combine to ensure that if you wear red, you will stand out.

A murky Skywatch at 90% humidity and 30°C.

Well they can't be CHIPS, because for starters we aren't in California, and we aren't within cooee of a highway. If you have to be a patrolling officer, then this would have to be one of the fun parts of the job I reckon.

Alexandra Headland

Ubiquitous

The thong (no not that kind) or humble flip flop as it's often known unless you live in New Zealand where I do believe one refers to them as jandals for some hitherto inexplicable reason, is probably the world's most travelled footware. It seems that they are built with some sort of wanderlust so that whenever they get the opportunity they jump into the ocean and float for years at a time.

Occasionally one will beach itself. The cause of this behaviour is not known, but there are several theories regarding ridding itself of parasites, or perhaps they aren't well and are trying to commit suicide.

Whatever the case, no one has yet explained why only right side shoes wash up in the Southern hemisphere, while the left side ones can be found in climes north of the equator.

Australia Day

Today is Australia Day, and although I've been keeping my eye out for suitable photo opportunities, they just haven't come along, or at least the ones with heaps of flags and that sort of thing haven't.

So here is a windmill, and icon of Australia's rural life. Used for pumping water they appear at every isolated bore or just about anywhere one wants to move water from one place to the next. With blades of pressed iron and corrugated vanes, many have been in service for a century.

This one at Maleny.

On another note, we'll be spending all of today at a ceremony to induct new Australian Citizens as some Canadian friends take the plunge, I'm sure there'll be a photo or two over coming days, but later in the evening I plan to post a report on my Fading Memories Blog for those interested.

Dragon

It was Mr Three who saw him first, in the darkest shadow in the cotton tree thicket. He was showing us his frilled neck and looking terribly fierce until I pulled out my camera. He had a few mates as well, but I was fortunate to catch him while he still had the red "fire" in his throat!

He(she?) is a bearded dragon, about two and a bit feet long, and quite common round the coast. This one was in the trees near that little camping spot that I featured in the past week or so. Oh, and have no fear, they are entirely harmless... mostly!

Tuff

I truly don't understand the reasoning behind owning a monster truck fitted out with the latest and greatest suspension in order to be able to drive down the fully paved road to the fully paved car parking area beside the beach.

Don't get me wrong, there is a place where off road vehicles are very useful, but I'm not sure that all that shiny chrome would survive at all well in that place.

Perhaps the owners just brought it down to teach it to swim.

Mooloolaba

Surf Shop

As you leave the beach at Mooloolaba, there's a reminder of what a great time you've just had.

Mooloolaba

Wave
or how to get wet Skywatching!

Actually it's probably not a wave, just a bit of a mark where one has been. Posting a photo a day isn't that hard when one lives at the beach; just slip in the occasional water shot to pad out the week, with an uncertain sky to make it a Skywatcher's photo too!

Minding the stuff

A beach bag waits patiently.

Alexandra Headland

More Happy Campers

Just to put yesterday's photograph in a bit of context.

And if it gets a bit of the wet stuff in the pic in time for WateryWednesday, then why not.

Mooloolaba

Happy Campers

In another week the campers will be starting to thin out as the summer holiday comes to an end, but one has to be just about born in this little camping ground in Mooloolaba to get one of these shoulder to shoulder beach front positions.

Perched right on the top of the dune, but hidden from the apartment buildings behind, yet only a few metres from cafes and even a supermarket, it has to be one of the best coastal camping locations on the planet.

Mooloolaba

Incoming!

Another plane load of tourists on final landing approach, bringing with them all the resources that keep the accomodation houses, supermarkets and all of us really in the manner to which we would like to become accustomed. None of us like the holiday crowds of course, but we all benefit from the business they bring and the infrastructure that they pay for.

Maroochydore

That Picnic Shelter

A few weeks ago, a picnic shelter was the centre of attention for a few days, when viewed from the inland side. To my delight, there's not a bad vantage point of it from the sea as well if one hops out on a few rocks and stands on tippy toe. There she be, on top of the cliff.

Mooloolaba

Always Look UP!

Never give a coconut tree the benefit of the doubt. Even though the fruit on this one are quite small, they'll still weigh several pounds/kilos, enough to impart a severe injury or worse, on an unsuspecting lounger sitting below.

Many of the towns in North Queensland employ people to remove coconuts in their formative stages to prevent serious injury to tourists. In Moololaba, I suspect that this is the only tree in fruit, and the chances of injury are slim, but do be aware when walking by a coconut palm!

Mooloolaba

HMAS Brisbane
a Skywatch at Sea

The monument to the HMAS Brisbane sits on the top of Alexandra headland, and features one of the original arials from the ship. If one sights between the mast and the bow of the ship, and imagines a spot five kilometres off shore, one can pinpoint the location of the hulk.

From Wikipedia:

Brisbane was sunk as a dive wreck off the coast of Queensland. Her bridge and one of her 5-inch (127 mm) guns were removed and preserved at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, which were incorporated into the post-1945 galleries, which opened in 2007.

Brisbane was sunk approximately 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) off the coast of Mudjimba, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, 31 July 2005 in 30 metres (98 ft) of water. Brisbane was filled with approximately 200 tonnes of concrete, and 38 small charges were detonated to breach the hull, the activation of which was performed by Queensland State Premier Peter Beattie. Brisbane sank in two and a half minutes. The top of her funnels can be seen lying just three metres below the water at low tide. A 2009 study of the value of protected areas found that the wreck had contributed AU$18 million to the Sunshine Coast economy.

I was high on the hill above Alexandra Headland on that fateful day, 31 July 2005, and took the following sequence of shots (from about seven kilometres distance on the old point and shoot!)

10:15 am

Charges are detonated. Each has been positioned so that when the ship is breached it will fill and sink so that it lies upright on the bottom, to maximise it's value as a dive wreck.

10:17 am

Smoke still wafts gently from the interior, but nothing seems to be happening.

10:18 am

and she begins to slip away.

10:19 am

All that remains is a throng of spectator craft and a fleet of helicopters, all moored outside a one kilometre exclusion zone.

We leave with a strange feeling; we've just seen a warship sink.

Alexandra Headland

Don't forget to check out other Skywatch photos today, and please note that although I have not participated in the City Daily Photo blogs "best photo of the year" theme today, there are hundreds of spectacular photos to be found should one care to follow this link.

The Trunk of the Coconut

Two things are always consistent with coconut palms;

One always finds little circular pock marks on them, often they look as though a potter has pushed her thumbs into them before they've set.

When people carve their initials into them (and who knows why they do that), they use a particular style of rigid, straight lettering, and it seems their initial is always "V".

I'm sure both of those observations have a scientific basis, but if I may return to this photo for a second, I do love the way the shells are just visible on the beach, as indeed is the merest hint of foam from the surf (top right).

Mooloolaba

The Tropics

Technically we are in the sub-tropics here, and coconut palms are a rare sight indeed, except on the little patch of beach near the caravan park at Mooloolaba, where four survive the ravages of the tides. They look as though they have been naturally sprouted, but I have my doubts. For a start they'd have had to have found their way south against the prevailing winds and currents.

Anything is possible I suppose, and they do give a quite tropical feel to the place when one knows where to find them!

If you like watching water, you can find links to many more wet photos at WateryWednesday!

The New Kite

While Dad's reading the instructions, we might just get this thing into the air by ourselves. Two girls and a three year old make light work of kite flying.

Mooloolaba

Reading the instructions

Getting that kite into the air looks as though it's going to take a University Degree. Not a bad place to be studying for it though, on the rocks at Mooloolaba.

Mooloolaba

Steve

The Crocodile Hunter lives in our memories on the Esplanade in Mooloolaba, where a marble sculpture depicting himself with his two children Bob and Bindi holding a baby crocodile is positioned so that he is gazing out to sea in perpetuity.

This was his neighbourhood of course, and Australia Zoo continues to be bigger and better managed by his family, just a few kilometres inland.

The kisses aren't a permanent feature, young Robert and Steve received more than their fair share on New Year's Eve.

For more information you may care to visit the website of the sculptor, Silvio Apponyi.

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Water Budgie

Joan told me a long time ago, that pictures of Seagulls don't count. We both agree that they just sort of sit there bored really, and don't provide any sort of challenge for the stalker or photographer.

So consider today's picture to be challenge free.

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Cabbage Palm Skywatch

Is it cheating for a Skywatch post, I wonder, to burn the sky completely out of the photo?

The day was mostly overcast, except for patches of dull blue, and this one hole just on dusk that the fast disappearing sun found as an excuse to floodlight the palm. It almost looks as thought it was shining UP into the tree. Actually it almost was!

For the technically minded, the palm is livistona Australis, a variety of Cabbage Tree Palm indigenous to this area, and this one is about seven metres tall and lives right beside our back verandah.

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Signal

When we were kids, we'd escape along the beach for hours, crawling among the rocks or building huge canals through the wet sand. We didn't have watches to tell the time, so Mum used to hang a towel out the window as a signal that it was lunch time.

I suspect this Mum probably sent an SMS, or maybe a Tweet, but the signal brought back memories.

Closer to Shore

It's closer to shore where the timid and the foolhardy hang out. On a day where the surf is gentle, like today, they'll be content to bob up and down in the foam until their bikini bottoms are filled with sand......

Watery Wednesday is all very well, but where there is water there are consequences!

On the Beach

Meanwhile, back on the beach, life goes on. The lifeguards guard, mother's apply more UV cream, and NO ONE sits out in the sun with no protection.

© Sunshine Coast Daily Photo - Australia

Out The Back

Usually one tries to swim out beyond the point where the waves are actually breaking, or "out the back" as it's known. This gives one first go at the incoming wave, and keeps one away from other bathers.

Perhaps this doesn't apply in the peak of the summer holidays!

Surf Craft

Just as has happened for generations, life skills are passed down from father to son, from grandfather to grandson. There are no finer skills to be learned than those involved in catching a wave.

Between the Flags

I was trying to match the join in the flag colours with the join between the sky and land, but nothing would stay still for me.

On a clear day, from the beach at Caloundra you can see almost the entire length of Bribie Island, but on a day when there's a stiff breeze, spray and mist obscure the view.

Today the weather was somewhere between the two extremes.

Changes
and a Happy New Year to All!

2010: Wow!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

What better way could there possibly be to welcome the new year than to change one's entire blog skin, and perhaps muck around with posting time as well! For better or for worse, unless I am swamped with complaints (don't you dare! ;-) ) this is it for the new year. Maybe.

Of course there may be a few other changes too, for instance there were a few dozen yesterday who used the bathing pavilion at Caloundra to change from their street clothes to their beach attire, although most of the hundreds who were there simply choose to sit around in their bathing suits all day, so perhaps as attitudes to changing change we won't see places to change later in the next decade.

The weather too was a bit changeable as it turned out, for the benefit of the Skywatchers among us.

I hope you all have a fantastic year as we go speeding into the new decade, accepting whatever change is thrust apon you without missing a beat.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants in today's City Daily Photo theme; "Changes", and just for fun, it's time you changed your iPhone wallpaper, so you can think of summer at the beach all year round! Every time you answer your phone, you'll feel a few degrees warmer, I guarantee it!

Just click on the image to download the full sized version! Don't have an iPhone? Well print it anyway and stick it on your refrigerator with one of those magnet thingies.