Cleaning

It's still too early for the sun to have made an impression, but already the tractor has been round cleaning the beach.   I am not sure exactly how much there is to clean, as there is little litter to be seen at the end of even the busiest day, but every bit helps I suppose.

Moffat Beach

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Not dead

They aren't dying either, the dune vegetation has been stripped of its leaves by the storms last month, and regrowth is just starting to appear on some of the branches.

That fluffy dog refuses to get out of the shot!

Moffat Beach

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Morning Textures

The sun disappears for a second in the early morning, and I'm not sure if the sand hasn't gone the colour of Belgium.   Or is it that I haven't quite got the hang of colour balancing the new camera?

Perhaps.

Moffat Beach

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Socialising

"Dogs allowed off-leash between 4:00pm and 8:00am".

It's a great place for the dogs of the neighbourhood of all shapes and sizes to let off a bit of steam, and for their owners to simply stand and chat until curfew.

The sun is out, and the wind is building!

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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Watching grass grow

I have a new camera and am just dying to get out and see if it works, but since it arrived our daily rainfalls have been 50, 42, and 72 mm respectively.   That's 2, 2 3/4 and 3 inches near enough, so the closest I can actually get to "out" is onto our front verandah between squalls.

The bare patches  in the lawn were badly burnt before the rain started, but now I suspect it may have actually drowned.

Sigh.

If tomorrow's post is similar, I will have no need to explain why!

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Tracery

The leaves on this monster Moreton Bay Fig trace their lace-patterns on the evening sky while below the multi trunks groan and creak as they rub against each other when the wind blows, but it stands undamaged, shadowing the road, and feeding the flying foxes!

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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Heading Home

Packing up to go home at the end of a long day.

Shouldn't take too long.

Moffat Beach
Caloundra


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Wading to the beach

It's not as bad as it looks, sure the storm surge brought exceptionally high tides and our boardwalk which takes us safely under the road to the beach was just a smidgen too low to stay dry.   The slope of the deck makes it look much worse than it was though.

Tooway Lake
Moffat Beach

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The calm before the Storm

On any day a month or two ago, the mouth of Tooway Creek looked a lot like this!

See yesterday's post for it's "new" appearance immediately afterwards.   Happily, it is now well on its way to recovery.

Tooway Creek
Moffat Beach

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The calm after the storm

Regular visitors may recall any number of photographs taken at the mouth of Tooway Creek, or Lake, depending on the time of week.

This one was taken the day after the storms had subsided, but with a monster sea still roaring "outside". What was once a calm bathing lagoon populated by small children is, for the time being at least, a deep hole devoid of anywhere to sit along its edges.

Tomorrow I shall post the same view taken a few days before the storm.

Tooway Creek
Moffat Beach

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Milking it

 When one's home beach has been subjected to a one in one hundred year storm, one can be excused for milking it for all it's worth for a week or two!

Moffat Beach the day after, bathed in foam.

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Oddly Tropical

Mid-storm, the pandanus trees have been neatly pruned, and the rain is heavy enough to take the sting out of what would usually be quite a vibrantly coloured seascape.

Kings Beach
Caloundra
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Oblivious

As the storm rages around him, one lone swimmer enjoys the sanctity of the pool at Kings Beach.

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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Surviving

I arrived minutes before the umbrellas were removed, but I was taken by the colour, or perhaps the lack of it.   I have published photos before of these umbrellas, against a brilliant blue sky, with the water in the pool a stunning turquoise.

I guess the rain just washes the colour away!

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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No longer under sand

A week ago the park was a sandy garden, with no paths.  

I suspect the orange machine has had no small part to play in its reparation.  Either that, or there has been a visit from someone who is heavily into extreme sandcastles.

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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Business as Usual

After sunset yesterday, and the beach pictured in yesterday's post has been restored naturally.  The sandy slopes however have had a bit of a helping hand.

In a few more days, no one will have cause to remember nature's fury.   I suspect it's a bit like childbirth - with each new event the pain is quickly forgotten in the face of the pleasure it brings!

Tooway Creek
Moffat Beach

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Precarious

Less than two weeks ago, what once was a placid lake and a sandy slope down to the beach was a raging mess, intent on sweeping away all before it.

Eventually the sand behind the protecting rocks below the house was attacked, but it remained unharmed.

Tooway Creek
Dicky Beach

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Time flies when you're having fun.

In the twilight, almost half way through the second month of the year a fisherman stands and wonders where the time has gone!

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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After the Australia Day Storm

The Norfolk Pines on the right are the very same that were pictured on the left yesterday.   What a difference a week makes!   No beach umbrellas today, and Dicky Beach is all but invisible through a cloud of haze, so with the mouth of Tooway Creek all but consumed by ocean, here is Moffat Beach again!


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Down on Dicky

It was just before a long weekend so  where else would one go?   Dicky Beach is "holiday busy" mid January, and the wreck of the Dicky is visible amid the crowd (to the right of the shot, at the water's edge).

More than anything, this photo illustrates just how much the urban sprawl is encroaching on our way of life!

Dicky Beach
Caloundra

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And now the grass is gone

 The pandanus tree of yesterday can be seen through the fork of the tree in centre frame.  What was once a grassy park with pebbled paths meandering through it is now buried under a foot of sand.

The cleanup has commenced though, and a small army of machines is working to place the sand back on the beach where it belongs.

Moffat Beach
Caloundra
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Pandanus by evening

Even in the evening half light the pandanus finds some shade to throw over the grass.  I have no idea how as the sun was well below the horizon, but it does.

Just a week ago, when I took this photo, the poor grass was crying out for just a drop of rain, anything at all to relieve its thirst.

In the interim, three hundred millimetres of it per day for a few days should have fixed that,  instead it brought with it huge seas and moved the beach over the trees.

Tomorrow I shall post the "now".

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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Umbrellas

After the weather we've been having, there is probably not an umbrella game to show its face lest it should be turned inside out, so here's a photo of some wall art in Memory Lane.

Memory Lane
Caloundra

For more umbrella photos, don't forget to visit today's City Daily Photo Theme Day page.

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Beach Cleaning

There is a touch of blue in the sky, a touch of menace in the horizon, huge swells and lots of erosion, but the beach is free of weed now!

The inlet is what is left of Tooway Lake, now Tooway River I suppose, but in a few days the sand will be back across its entrance and the cycle will begin again.

Moffat Beach
Caloundra
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Weed!

Aweek ago, before the storms but after days of strong northerly winds the headland is left strewn with an odd brown kelp.  In the normal event it would be gone with the next tide, or perhaps washed away by the evening storm that threatens but never seems to be of substance.

Well it was washed away alright, along with the rest of the beach!

Photograph tomorrow!

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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Kings Beach

 Kings Beach is a bit sheltered, out of the way of the wind and the bulk of the swell, but yesterday the holiday crowds thought better of it.

Pictured below in happier times, to remind us that they were only a few days ago!

King's Beach.
Caloundra

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Summer's End

 It's the last day of the summer holiday today.  Tonight holiday apartments and beach houses will be as empty as the highways will be full, as everyone makes the exodus south to Brisbane and another year of work and school.

 But the roads are broken and some of them flooded, so extra care will be needed while travelling.  Safe travels everyone, we'll see you next year!

This photo of course was taken earlier, before the arrival of the storms and winds and floods which have abated here apart from the odd squall and huge seas, continue to inundate communities further south.  

I guess the storms were sort of like a farewell fireworks show!

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It never rains, but it pours!

We have had 148 mm of rain (6 inches) overnight, with winds to 85 kph, the sea is building to an expected wave height of five metres, and the BAD weather hasn't reached us yet!

Wind is expected to increase to 140kph, rainfall to 300 mm for today, and there is a good possibility that we will see "mini tornadoes", not true tornados but little violent storm cells within the storm.

The last weekend of the summer holidays will probably not be spent lying on the beach!  I suspect this will be the last photo I take of this particular storm as well.  I rather like being warm and dry.

Moffat Beach
Caloundra
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Australia - gateway to the new world!

I suppose I should be out taking photographs of flags and barbecues and people in hats with green and yellow suncream on their faces, but to be blunt, it's raining so hard I'd drown as soon as I left the front door.

After a month or more with not a drop of rain and temperatures in the high thirties, and the grass brown and crisp, with bush fires thrown for colour we now have what could only be described as "flooding rains", unusually high tides and big seas.  How Australian is that??

The social cricket game and family activities in the park have been abandoned.

So instead of photographing the cricket in the park I thought I'd reflect on a bit of Australian history, a time time not very long ago when "gated" was an adjective that conflicted with "community"not something to define it.

In those days the fence was simple, and sensibly built to make it easy for one to retrieve one's cricket ball after hitting a six (over the fence scored six and OUT).   The palings made useful cricket bats too, as long as they were back in place before dad got home from work, and neighbourhoods discussed everything of importance and other things to boot, "over the fence".

Privacy?  It's a back yard for crying out loud, if you need privacy, go inside, get out of the rain, and watch the cricket on television!

Moffat Beach

Today, Australia celebrates its national day.  To view more Australia Day photo blog posts, please follow THIS LINK.

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Collage

Glass pool fences may not be everyone's "cup of tea", but they do provide some curious opportunities to compose photographs.

Moffat Beach
Caloundra

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Old Girl

Beaches and old cars seem to go hand in hand.  They are mortal enemies of course with all the salt in the air, but at the same time the mist seems to gloss over their imperfections, and our memories of just how awful travelling in them really was!


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Can't afford a gnome?

 Garden ornaments made of various floats and bits found on the shore, or bought at a market, or just left around the place.

Whatever the truth of the source, the result gives a suitably "beachy" feel to the yard.   There was a time when floats were romantically made of glass with  tarred rope netting holding them in place.

Styrene and plastic is the "New Romantic".

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Prayer

Rock pools and the heavy shade of a pandanus make a great place to rest out of the heat and to pray for just a drop of rain or a cool change, or even for a continuation of conditions exactly as they are.....

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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Rust

 It doesn't sleep they say, ever.   It's one of the hazards of living where we live - everything metal has a finite lifespan including nails and screws buried deep below several generations of paint.

On the home front, everything that has been exposed to the weather for the last thirty years or so is being removed, to be renovated or replaced with newer, less easily corroded alloy, but even with careful cleaning and maintenance, it too will be starting to show signs of living by the sea within a few short years.

Kings Beach Surf Club
Caloundra

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Waiting for the rain

I suppose all those people have umbrellas in case it rains.  There's no sign of that for a few weeks apparently, but it will come then.  I know that because I will be starting some building work which will involve removing part of the roof of our house.

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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Flock of towels

Long term browsers of this blog may recall that I like to record the first towel-over-balcony rail of summer.  This year I missed for reasons not easily understood, but console myself with the knowledge that they are once again appearing in numbers.

In a few weeks they will be all but gone, along with the crowds, as the summer holiday draws to its inevitable close.

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Wave!

Not much around and plenty waiting to share what's there.    Waiting is not unpleasant though, it's not exactly like being in the dentist's rooms.

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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A few steps back

Yesterday's family photograph is taking place in the centre of this shot.  It's often surprising to see the brig picture.

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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Say Cheese

Another great souvenir of their Sunshine Coast Holiday for the family album!

A few years ago, it would have been off to the Chemist shop to have the film developed and the prints would arrive "in the post" a week or so after everyone had returned from holiday.  This photo was probably on Facebook before I arrived home, and I only live around the corner!

Bulcock Beach

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Wet Paint

Sometimes I wonder how we ever managed without signs warning us not to get out of bed each day lest we should come across something harmful.

Perhaps this is someone's method of preventing me sticking my finger into the fresh paint to determine for myself whether it had properly cured.  Another way may have been not to draw my attention to the newly renovated surface.

I did get the message though!

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Tom Ella and Kate

There are many ways of leaving a mark.  Scratching a name in the mould on a dirty concrete wall is one which doesn't do permanent manage, and as successive Toms and Kates and Ellas arrive and make new marks over older fading ones, a pleasant sort of patina starts to emerge.

Graffiti is a theme that I have an interest in, but perhaps thankfully it is not in abundance in our town.  The occasional wit may be found, such as the example from March 2008 below, but there is precious little genuine street 'art' to be found.

For more "Festival of the Belly Button" introspection, please visit: The City Daily Photo Theme Day pages. 

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On the Rocks

This month's theme day is one of introspection: what has changed since the early days of this blog, how has it impacted on my photography?

Given that the photo below appeared sometime in March 2008, it's pretty easy to see that there is a common theme that keeps bobbing up.  When one lives in a town with a longer coastline than that of say Belgium, perhaps one can be forgiven for gravitating back to the place that gives it its name.

I have dabbled over the years in poor attempts at social commentary, and recording the more mundane aspects of the town, but when all is said and done, people live here and visit for one principal reason: the lifestyle, and I think that is the greatest realisation that I have had over the years.   We are all here to have a good time, so take some photographs and get on with it.   If some of them bring a little warmth into a cold northern hemisphere winter, well so much the better!

"In the Foam" - 31 March 2008

For more "Festival of the Belly Button" introspection, please visit: The City Daily Photo Theme Day pages. 

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Pandanus

Pandanus fruit.  Not much else to say really.

Moffat Beach

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Relax!

In a heatwave, who cares about what is or isn't the new building vernacular anyway.   There's plenty of cool blue sea to ponder without having to turn around!

Caloundra

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The new vernacular

I don't know why, but to me all that white and aluminium is starting to say "I'm at the beach" just as clearly as the palms and Norfolk Pines.

Caloundra

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Eclecticism

Almost every building in this picture comes from a different decade from the eighties to the present.  Thirty years has brought a wide variety of planning constraints and material fashions in what is really a new-town development.

Many styles and colours were borrowed from other parts of the world, sometimes in an almost frenetic attempt to keep up with the latest trends with nary a thought to trying to create something original.  Of late however there is a distinct style emerging, modern, white and silver, nothing highly original, but perhaps a new vernacular is emerging - a clearer style.

Time will tell.

Caloundra
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Paddling

I'm not sure how the activity described as walking in ankle deep water came to be described as "paddling", but here's someone having a paddle.

Kings Beach
Caloundra

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