Sunshine Coast Daily Photo

Friday, 2 July 2010

Going Home

A classic timber surfboat, it's racing days over, makes a nifty inboard fishing boat for just whiling away the sunset.

The black and white photo is in deference to its vintage.

Reflected Dreams

There's nothing like a Kombi full of surfing gear and a bit of bedding to bring out the dreams of a faded youth!

This month's City Daily Photo Bloggers theme day is "reflections".Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Now I'm on the verge of doing the gallery a huge disservice here, the range and quality of work on display is quite incredible, but I did like the nude sculpture sunbaking in front of the pastel of Mooloolaba beach.

Clearly I didn't like it enough to focus, or bring a tripod, but if you visit the gallery yourself you won't need either of those things!

http://www.gallerybeneath.com.au/

Gallery Beneath

Because Claire thought I should be taking something that better represented the gallery! Hah, perhaps I should have.

There's no substitute for actually visiting yourself you know: http://www.gallerybeneath.com.au/

Things I like about Caloundra - 5

Street Art that really isn't. Another corner of the library.

Things I like about Caloundra - 4

I like the library, although I wonder if I'll get into trouble for taking this shot? Every time I go there I want to stay and read (no, not on the train!), unlike some others on the Coast which just remind me of being in a supermarket.

Things I like about Caloundra - 3

I do like the trees in the perhaps oddly named Bulcock Street, they are an example of a little avenue that got seriously out of hand.

Things I like about Caloundra - 2

I like the parks, even if I can't photograph them because of the heavy shade the trees provide whenever I try.

Things I like about Caloundra -1

I love the way the water is just there, but the CBD feels like a CBD, albeit a very small and not very busy one.

Sunset over the coast

I know it's a them I repeat often, but for all the concerns about population growth, and the lack of infrastructure, it's fairly clear that there is room to expand.

Mooloolaba to the left, Caloundra to the right, not much anywhere else!

Winter from the Hills

The air seems hazy, but Moreton Island looms apparently very close, not the forty or more kilometres that it is, as though the bay is just a puddle.

The tiny boats are container ships trundling, if that's what boats do in the middle of the night, down the bay towards Brisbane.

The chill in the air as pushed the heavy moisture into the valleys but down there, what we perceive from this distance as fog, will be scarcely noticable.

The air is truly full of contradictions.

Facade

There's a certain casual feeling that result if one doesn't constrain design "outcomes" by wrapping them in planning legislation. Old meets new in a structured haphazardness, and that's the way we like it.

Milking It

When those red leaves appear, just keep taking photos.

I didn't think I'd see this until October in France!

Gotta love Maleny.

Dressed for the cold

As the temperature plummets below 20° C, a gentleman takes a walk braced against the chill.

Maleny.

Those who have not lived in a climate such as ours cannot possibly understand the joy that the sight of a single deciduous tree, or even three of them can bring.

And this in early winter too!

Maleny

Verandah

So that's where we are!

Main Street

Maleny can be a funny place visually. It should be picturesque with its wide curving street and the slope carrying one's eye with it, and the deep shade that appears late in the afternoon and the sharp facades brightly lit, and so on. But I don't find it so.

It seems to be forever over run by cars, even though the traffic is not always great, the automobile is omnipresent.

Maleny

Decisions

I had to choose between focussing on the tree or the building facade. I chose the former, then wished I hadn't, but it probably doesn't matter, the afternoon sun in Maleny makes a pretty backdrop to the shop verandahs.

Maleny

Auctioneers

I am not sure if I haven't willingly given the impression that this sign may relate to the model in the picture. It doesn't, and I suppose with no arms and a very small head, she can be excused for not ironing her apron.

Maleny

Punkins.

I don't know why "pumpkin" is sometimes pronounced "punkin", it just is.

Despite my mother's protestations when I was young, or perhaps because of them, I still prefer my pumpkin in small portions that can be buried on my fork with something nicer!

Baskets

I think baskets are one of the great imponderables. Wherever one finds organic produce one finds a basket that was definitely not organic. Is it really from South America? Or from Indonesia pretending to be from South America? Or from China pretending to be from Indon..... OK I'll stop.

Take the spuds home in a colourful basket and be happy!

The Pub

I know sometimes I rant about power lines and their visual amenity, but here I'm not so sure they don't add positively to the clutter that is the Maleny Pub. For all the activism that happens in the area, I wonder why no one has taken offence at carrying electricity above the ground.

Maleny

Bumper Cars

OK they are actually ride-on mowers, but they reminded me terribly of fairground bumper cars when I saw them in the setting sun.

Maleny

African Tulip

I can't help but wonder why the African Tulip tree was ever loved enough to plant in numbers, but it was. It's one of those trees that's always making some sort of a mess, dropping leaves or seeds or pollen or flowers without ever appearing to be particularly attractive.

To make matters worse, it's recently been discovered to have pollen that is lethal to our native bees, so now I really really dislike them!

They aren't quite declared noxious, but they are one step away. It's currently illegal to plant them or sell them or propogate them.

I't ok to photograph them though.

Not Heather - Grass.

The hills at this time of year are pink with a particular type of grass flower.

I haven't looked it up, so I can't report the species, but I do remember that as one of a bunch young boys we used to hold a stalk of it across our mouths and there would be a contest to pull the stalk from one's opponent, sideways, so the sticky flowers would remain in his mouth. It was all quite unpleasant and didn't make any more sense then than it does now.

Traffic Planning

And then there is the railway which runs through all the hinterland suburbs. Thankfully there are moves afoot to solve the traffic hold ups at rail crossings, but currently it doesn't pay to be in a hurry if one is driving down the main street of Landsborough.

The photo is a snapshot into the setting sun, taken from the driver's seat.

Infrastructure

It's hard to drive anywhere round here without coming across a similar scene. We are bursting at the seams, or will be soon through lack of infrastructure. No sooner has a road been built than it is ready for an upgrade because of population growth.

It's not that we're crowded, it's all been just poorly planned!

Here is Steve Irwin Way near Mooloolah, and it's interesting to note the dotted line, which until just recently was the centre of the two way road. Surely the four and six lane highway that replaces it will keep us going for a week or two!

Bookshop

There is a lot to like about the bookshop at Maleny. I specially like the late afternoon shadows and the way the colour changes in the setting sun, but the contents are pretty likeable as well.

Golden Fleece

The Golden Fleece is variously a remnant from Greek mythology, a reference to an ancient gold mining technique, or an Australian Oil Company which was purchased by a multinational brand around thirty years ago and therefore passed into mythology as well.

Occasionally one still comes across a remnant from days gone by, like this petrol station standard in Maleny, but even these are becoming a rare site now.

Ironically, the time is fast approaching when oil will be as precious as gold.

We are never far from undeveloped land, it bobs up around every corner, but as the sign says it's all one way traffic.

It's all been planned you see, and as the population increases, and the rate of occupancy of the commercial premises improves, the life expectancy of the green spots diminishes. It's a great conundrum really, we all come here wanting nothing to change, but out very presence puts pressure on existing infrastructure, forcing it, so then we blame those who have come after us for the fact that things are no longer what they were.

We will tell our grandchildren that we remember when the kangaroos used to wander into the carparks.

And they do.

But of course we remember it before the carparks were here too.

I wonder what's inside?

Now why, if one had a perfectly good shop selling beds, with lots of window space to show the stock off to advantage, would one block off the windows entirely, with a picture of what the interior of the showroom looks like?

Imponderable methinks!

Signs of our times
The Paint Shop

Obviously they used someone else's paint for the sign.

Today's City Daily Photo theme is "funny signs". Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Paint City

Maroochydore

Signs of our Times
Moonlighting Doctor

I'm not sure that I need to say more about this.

Bundilla

Signs of our times
No Photographs

Obviously this is a hand drawn original and not a photograph. If I had taken a photograph I would have been contravening a faded, plastic laminated order wired to a fence.

They don't even say "Please".

What is the international symbol for "I find laminated posters telling me I can't take photographs offensive."?

Signs of our times
Street Art

Actually it's just a big mark where a sign has been.

When I saw this piece I wondered if I should sign it and sell it for a small fortune. It's not my work of course, it's the remnant of a dollop or seven of construction glue remaining where the sign it was once holding has succumbed to gravity.

Note to file: "Liquid Nails" is not a waterproof glue, do not use outdoors if you want your sign to stay in place. Also note: The bit of glue which remains on the wall is in fact waterproof and will not be able to be removed no matter what one does.

Signs of our times
Husband Parking

Some of the nice shopkeepers in Montville provide reserved seating for long suffering husbands while their wives browse endlessly within.

Sunset at Kings

Sunset, King's Beach.

It's easy to tell how many apartments are occupied by counting the number of lights on within. In summer, we'd be blinded by the light!

Golden Beach

Actually it's King's Beach, sunset last night.

Glasshouse mountains watching in the background.

Haphazard

My blood doesn't quite boil, but I can't help but be a little disgruntled when I'm somewhere like downtown Caloundra, and I see overgrown grass, bins awaiting collection, road signs hidden behind power poles, and I think of all the onerous conditions that would be placed on someone trying to redevelop.

If Council spent as much time working in a positive way among its existing infrastructure as it does "assessing" development applications... well I'd better not go on!

Streetscape

Down King's Beach way, the wheelie bins are colour co-ordinated with the streetscape.

Nice touch!

Winter Approaches

It's only a week or so until Winter officially commences, and while we don't actually have anything that could be described as "nasty winter weather" we all think we do.

There are few people to be seen on the beaches and the days are terribly short. (We think!) Here at Kings Beach, there is not a soul to be seen at 5:00 pm on a working day, and it looks all bleak and forlorn, but the reality is that I was standing in a tee shirt in a temperature around 20°.

It just looks like winter!

Winter Approaches

It's late Autumn. Unlike some countries where Autumn means layers of leaves building up on the footpaths, here it means layers of boats building up unsold in the yards.

Redundancy

There is a well known European supermarket chain which is establishing itself very nicely around the country. The stores are much smaller than the larger chains, and often they build over a ground level carpark, which calls for challenging design solutions to allow people and heavily laden trolleys to rise from carpark to shop level.

This is done simply by ramp or elevator usually, but in Caloundra at least, the elevator is in a beaut glass shaft, which is strange because the car itself is a standard, non see-through variety.

Perhaps it's so the service technicians can see if the cables are fraying without having to dismantle anything.

National Park

To me, these rocks say Noosa National Park. There are no others like them on the Sunshine Coast, and one day soon I must learn a bit more about the geology behind their presence.

Autumn Hues

The tree is actually dead, or dying and the colour is brought to us by the setting sun, but it's as close to an Autumn look as we are going to get round here, where all our trees are evergreen.

Butcher Bird

This little bloke is one of a family that watches me most days as I sit on the steps drinking my morning coffee. Sometimes I feel as though I should apologise to him, but I have no idea what I've done!

What is water?

I spend my life trying to work out what water actually looks like.

Some days it looks like this.

Sunset

I was watching the sunset tonight and got the giggles.

Until last week, when the project was unceremoniously cancelled, this was the route of a new freeway and rail link.

Time to reflect on what might have been!

Greyhound

Another imponderable. Why are Greyhounds actually red? Another load of visitors ready to wend their way quietly home, or more likely, to their next destination.

Very few visitors arrive by public transport, most choosing to drive themselves, and when one is visiting a town that measures fifty kilometres across, that's not a bad idea.