• About

snippetsandsnaps

~ Potato Point and beyond

snippetsandsnaps

Tag Archives: beach

Hotchpotch 18

25 Wednesday Jul 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in hotchpotch, photos

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

banksias, beach, family, python, trees, wasp nest, water views

Banksias

Family

Nicolson Barker, rescue dog, with my daughter after his first attendance at obedience school

My son in his workplace in the rivers around Cairns: only one crocodile that I heard about

Bruce, our resident python, all new-skinned, on my deck!

Photos lurking on a card I obviously haven’t used since 2013

Son and son-in-law meet coincidentally at Gate 39 at Brisbane Airport

Around the streets

Trees

Coffee by the water

Beach miscellany

Odds and ends

Hotchpotch 16

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in hotchpotch, photos

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

beach, chiffonier, dead flowers, light, Sculpture Bermagui, signs, twins, water and sky

On top of the chiffonier

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about objects that represent experiences and the people I love. The red cedar chiffonier in my living room belonged to my Auntie Min. She had it restored towards the end of her life, and it was part of my tangible inheritance from her. The wedgewood candlestick used to sit on my mother’s dressing table. The feathers have been collected and gifted over a number of years, and maybe presage a photographic feather-frenzy. The Prague crystal container was a gift from my more-sister-than-sister-in-law; the amber pendant a gift from my daughter’s parents-in-law; nestled invisibly amongst its silver chain are the topaz earrings my new husband gave me on my birthday two days after we were married; the bird was an unexpected gift from a Siberian friend of my daughter. Underneath it all lies a placemat crocheted by my mother – and overlying it, a patina of dust that is my unique contribution. So much history and biography, conveyed in just a few items.

Water and sky

Blind drawing

This image, Penguin flight, was created by Gillian Wilde using the continuous line technique, without looking at the paper. (Photographed at Gallery Bodalla, with permission)

Dead things and light

My muse for both of these is Sue at WordsVisual. She has taught me the absolute and rather mystifying charm of flowers beyond their prime, to the point where the giver of these zinnias asked plaintively whether I’d actually enjoyed them fresh. I did, when they were plump with youth, but I also like their graceful drooping lines and curls as they fade.

There is only one creature more a seeker of light than Sue, and that is Cruz. If you want to know the best place to capture sunshine, cherchez le chien.

The inevitable beach!

A summary of the many pleasures of the beach: those knobbled shells nuzzling into all sorts of crannies; patches of tapestry-lichen; tumbleweed, the same ecru-oatmeal as the sand; a discarded seagull feather, just one; sandripples, seaweed and buff jelly; rockpools peopled by light, seaweed, an albino crab, worm tracks and pink sea lichen.

Bermagui

I said there would probably be more sculptures, and I was right!

A pair of rusty Easter-Island-like monuments,

a bit of musical rust,

a ray and a magpie

and contrasting shapes

Signs

The 5 year olds

Miss Maja, and cake: they’ve always been congenial companions: Janek’s allergies prevent him from enjoying the same pleasures.

Exploring as Mum watches from a height.

Christmas photos

Hotchpotch 15

01 Thursday Mar 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in hotchpotch, photos

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

bark, beach, Canberra, light

Hotchpotch seems to be turning into a revamping of the month. I don’t mind reliving this month. It had many delights.

Canberra

The National Museum of Australia offered more pleasures than Songlines, Midawarr and virtual reality. Here’s a taste of a few things I saw in passing.

A 1950s picnic with a silver Holden, and a pink caravan built for promotional use in 1956, as Australians began to acquire cars, a disposable income, and leisure.

Brabham BT23A-1 Repco V8, Formula 1 racing car, designed and raced by Jack Brabham, a household name in Australia in my youth. He himself drove it to victory in 1967: since then it’s been owned, raced and crashed by a number of owners but still has the original chassis, centre body and steering shaft.

From the windows of the museum there’s a view over landscaping or the outdoor dining area, across Lake Burley Griffin, to the Captain Cook fountain.

The National Arboretum

The building itself, “elegant and light-filled”, has a high arching roof, huge windows and stone walls. Inside, the forms are inspired by leaves and trees. The timber frame uses laminated Tasmanian oak from sustainably managed plantations and contains over 3,000 unique structural members, cut to shape from computer models, test fitted in factories in Tasmania and then erected on site. So says the fact sheet. The gumnuts, tree trunk and plantation of palms are in Hotchpotch, because I can’t identify them.

University House

This is my favourite accommodation in Canberra. Not only is there a John Wolseley painting near the reception desk, but there is a waterlily pool and the ghosts of my youth. It was here I used to come to visit my friend Rosemary when she was studying and I was teaching in Temora … long, long, l o n g ago.

The beach …

… always the beach! Which needs no commentary.

Gallery Bodalla

This local gallery behind Bodalla Post Office has wonderful exhibitions, but photography isn’t encouraged. I couldn’t resist sneaking a closeup of paintwork in Justin Pearson’s work, and wish I could show you his figures, unfinished-looking but full of pure energy.

Light

In pursuit of the falling of light I captured J’s washing baskets replete with rumpled clothes, my weekend supplies in a Carrefour bag, and the shelf for rock specimens, all enclosed in efficiently labelled zip-lock bags. Light was supposed to be a lengthy ongoing project, but it dwindled to one collage in the face of other preoccupations.

And finally, plants …

… garden flowers, staircase leaves, fallen star flowers and noble bark.

Hotchpotch 14

19 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in hotchpotch, photos

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

architecture, beach, family, plants

Family holiday

For a month in December and January my house was full of family. I failed them a few times. Failure to provide surf was my main crime – “the worst surf over Christmas in 20 years, mum.” Failure to have in the fridge whatever it was whoever it was was looking for ran it a close second. In spite of this, they took me to Canberra where we visited the Dombrovskis‘ photographic exhibition and Questacon, the national science and technology centre; and they harvested oysters from the rocks, enough for a quick pre-dinner feast for six.

Oh, and I almost forgot! How could I? Two most important participants in a family get-together: Cruz and Jenga.

On the beach

Most of my beach-walking was close to home, but there were still plenty of treasures of the usual kind: seaweed, driftwood, shells, rockface, grasses. There was also an unaccustomed pleasure: company.

Prowling daybreak

I maintained my early mini-walks, occasionally before the household was stirring, although it was hard to beat hopeful surf-seekers. The early morning light remained a great treat, especially as it fell on the seedpods of Stars of Bethlehem. The vanishing of their blue and white flowers marked the end of Christmas.

Houses around Spud

I took advantage of the slumbers of the village to do a quick photo-essay on Potato Point architecture, beginning with my own beforested house. (By the time the visitors left it was a bit less forested. When a hakea fell over the drive it left an emptiness that drew attention to other leaners and potential fallers, which my children removed while I hid my face and hoped for their safety.) The other houses are mostly undistinguished, although there aren’t many traces of the beach shacks which have either been removed or renovated. What strikes me most looking through this collection is the bareness, which may be because a lot of the houses are holiday places.

Leaning

Sometimes photographic themes leap out at you. For a while everywhere I looked things were leaning, and I foresaw a lengthy photo essay. Then things stopped leaning, and this is the grand total.

And if all this summer is too much for you … twins in Warsaw

Night noises: dusk to daybreak

17 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by morselsandscraps in words only

≈ 19 Comments

Tags

beach, bush, night noises

1

In the bush

The light patter of rain on an iron roof. Slabs of bark whirled from tree-trunks landing with faint thud. The crack of a metal can contracting in the corridor. The rising whoop whoop whoop of a nightjar. The barking of a neighbour’s dog.

A short time of silence when not even the breeze breathes.

And then morning sounds. The crowing of a faraway rooster. The revving up and fading laugh of a pair of kookaburras. The shrill throbbing of cicadas. The clear trilling of a lyrebird, interspersed with its rattling, whirring and thudding.

And then the padding of bare feet, heading to the kitchen to make coffee.

2

At Potato Point

The voices of children playing in the street as light fades. The hissing and snorting of possums. Occasionally a slight asthmatic wheeze or the irritating zzzzzzzz of a mosquito.

The crunch of gravel in the drive at 2 am as my son leaves for work.

The long whimpering of an unhappy puppy. The call of the wolf-whistle bird. A twitter, a trill a throaty rise. The happy-birthday-to-you bird. The magpies’ liquidity. The friar bird with its irritating grackle-grackle-grackle. A harsh wick wuck wuck. All the smaller twittering that one day I’ll be able to name.

And always the continuo of the surf.

I need a 6 months holiday… 2 times a year.

21 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in guest post, photos

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

beach, holiday, nanny meg, Potato Point, TRT

Potato Pt has been a favoured destination for our family since as long as I can remember. Longing for the yearly trips on the summer holidays is the only thing that gets me through school, one assessment handed in is one assessment closer to six weeks of bliss. And that is exactly what it is. Everything about the south coast radiates bliss. Walks on the beach, waking up to nanny meg pottering around the kitchen with her new adorable haircut, surfing, swimming, kayaking, camping, socialising and bike riding. Ours days are dominated by activities such as these and we return to the house battered and exhausted where a little old woman and a mental white dog await our return. The place brings experiences you cannot have in any other part of the world, no matter how far you travel or how much you pay. Falling asleep to the sound of the wild sea, watching the sun set from the headland, smelling the salty spray of ocean with a hint of kangaroo poo, tasting nanny Meg's gourmet dinners. It makes the senses tingle with pleasure everywhere you turn. Although, a heavy feeling begins gripping your heart reminding you that you will have to leave and resume your job and school work. This is the feeling that slumps your shoulders and droops your eyes with its sheer weight. But all good things must come to an end. This is our personal little paradise, our sanctuary of relaxation, and nanny Meg's presence is just the cherry on top. As Facebook once said, “I need a 6 months holiday… 2 times a year”.



 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Family gathering

04 Monday Jan 2016

Posted by morselsandscraps in family, photos

≈ 17 Comments

Tags

beach, bush, Christmas holidays, daughter-in-law from heaven

My house is no longer the staid domicile of a working son, a woman in her seventies and a white dog with black eyepatches. It's the roiling base for the Mt Tamborine mob: my son and daughter-in-law, two grandkids and a calm black dog. The garage is full of camping gear; kayaks and surf boards lie under rainforest trees; wetsuits and wet underpants dangle from branches; a TV migrates upstairs surrounded by a scatter of Nintendo handsets. The frig is packed with ham, leftovers, chicken thawing, lettuce and herbs from J's garden dome – but not with whatever it is A's looking for when he opens it hopefully. There is perpetual coming and going: K's sisters are staying north at Tuross; S's mates south near Tilba.

The beach calls: T and A are old enough to surf alone or bike around the village, and even I ramble down late one afternoon to watch them ride waves and my granddog dig a colony of holes. On Christmas Day, J and I stand on the headland and watch our youngest in the empty sea waiting and waiting for a wave. Another day, his brother documents him in the thick of more action. Uncle H hops his 6' onto a motorbike too small for his nephew and hoons up the street, knees up to chin. The Christmas lunch entertainment is provided by the coupling of a murky brown no-egg vegan pumpkin pie (mine for J) and a luscious white pavlova, six inches of eggs, sugar and cream (T's for the rest of us) which tempted me into two evil slices.

One of the holiday rituals for S is a motorbike adventure with his mates out into the rugged wilderness behind Cobargo, this time negotiating the notorious razorback ridge where there's a sheer drop into two valleys. I go out with him, about an hour from home, to hide extra fuel, through Nerrigundah and out to Belowra and Belimbla. Although I haven't been out there for many years, it feels beautifully familiar: the view out over the ranges of the great divide, and then the opening out into the Belowra Valley. We stop on the edge of the dirt road where there is a brief moment of mobile reception and I eavesdrop as S talks to someone who knows the area, scrutinises the map, is tortured by locked gates, and then discusses his findings with a mate. I sit idly and suddenly see something tiny and white moving quickly on the rocky road edge – an ant with some kind of food – or is it an egg? I'm astonished that I can see something minute so clearly and I track its movements for five minutes and about three meters before I lose sight. Phone calls over, we go back the way we've come for a rethink and then follow tracks down to the clear waters of the Tuross looking for a ford.

While we're away a miracle has happened. I left a vast pile of mulch on the grass outside my fence. It is no longer there – it has been spread all over my front yard, K's handiwork with a bit of help from my son and grandkids. Once she starts there is no stopping her: she prunes and clears and leaf-blows and terminates vines until my front yard actually looks weed-free and tidy. My feeble plan for the mulch was two wheelbarrows a day: she does it by the car-trailer.

This isn't the end of her home maintenance. Discovering my gutters need clearing she finds a ladder and climbs up onto the roof to remove the litter of a shameful number of years, including the shed skin of my resident python. In all of which she assures me she takes great pleasure, not enjoying idleness.

There is a lot of calm time between frenetic activity: teasing the dog by pretending to eat his hambone or reading. My resident son produces books from his downstairs hoard for his nephew. Grandfather and 12-year-old grandson compete for the same book: So you've been publicly shamed by Jon Ronson. A. goes off to ride his bike and tucks the book out of sight. This is a time-honoured family tradition: you hide what you're reading so no one can nick it.

When they go out for the day, the house reverts to silence, and feels quite empty.

 

Kids!

Waiting for a wave ...

... and catching one

Brown's cows and Christmas lunch

Preparing for an epic motorbike ride

The daughter-in-law from heaven

 

 

Acknowledgement: The title of this post was appropriated from one of Paula's challenges. I thank her! This post wasn't appropriate for a one-photo challenge, nor had the events in it happened then.

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

A Daintree beach

19 Friday Jun 2015

Posted by morselsandscraps in Northern Queensland, photos

≈ 14 Comments

Tags

beach, beach assemblage, beach pebbles

Trawling through northern Queensland photos, I found a beach I can’t believe I overlooked. It is strikingly different from beaches at home: the bush reaching down to the water, the palm trees, the pebbliness, the water runnels, the assemblages left by the sea. Posting it is a way of reprising a part of a travelling year.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Maiden voyage in phoneography

08 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by morselsandscraps in phoneography

≈ 15 Comments

Tags

beach

This morning, cool 7 am air tempted me out for a morning beachwalk. The temptation was strengthened by a looming deadline for a piece of writing I’ve know about for a year: I’m the matriarch of procrastination. I’ve had my iPhone since November and have only just begun to use it, thanks to the tutelage of the Tamborine mob (more procrastination.)

IMG_0048
IMG_0062

Track to a Gold Coast beach

19 Friday Dec 2014

Posted by morselsandscraps in photos, Queensland

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

beach, family, flowers, Gold Coast

An early knock on the caravan door has me out of bed and ready for the beach in five quick minutes. We park opposite Sea World and walk along a track to the beach: dog-with-a-purple-collar, two surfers, a swimmer, and a hanger-on grandma who forgot to bring swimming gear to Queensland in summer.

Join me as I amble down to the beach past unfamiliar plants, and, after a paddle, return behind the dunes to sit in my low sand-chair in the shade. Watch a runner who stops to do twenty push-ups, runs away, returns and does twenty more. Notice two ground birds skulking through the grass, and a butterfly skimming above them. Maintain silence as I try to catch up with my neglected diary.

The dog with the purple collar and the woman with long legs and a filmy dress crest the sandhills; the girl with a body board on a lead comes up the track: the man on the board swoops across the horizon on a wave and then jogs towards us. The family has assembled and we return up the mountain to the boy left behind to sleep.

image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
image
Posted with BlogsyPosted with Blogsy

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • September 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014

Categories

  • "White beech"
  • Aboriginal history
  • Aboriginal site
  • animals
  • arboretum
  • archaeology
  • architecture
  • archives
  • art
  • Australian Ballet
  • babcia indulgence
  • banksias
  • bark
  • beach walk
  • beaches
  • bench series
  • Bingi Dreaming Track
  • birds
  • Black and white Sunday
  • boats
  • Bodalla
  • books
  • botanical art
  • botanical gardens
  • brief biographies
  • brief reviews
  • Brisbane
  • bush
  • bush walk
  • Cairns
  • camera skills
  • camping
  • Canberra
  • Carters Beach
  • challenges
  • challenges, art
  • cogitations
  • confession
  • Cooktown
  • country towns
  • Cowra
  • creating
  • creative friends
  • creatures
  • Daintree world heritage area
  • decisions
  • discovery of the week
  • Eurobodalla
  • Eurobodalla beaches
  • Eurobodalla bush
  • faction
  • family
  • farewell blogging
  • floods
  • flora
  • flowers
  • flying
  • food
  • found art
  • friends
  • gardens
  • geology
  • Germaine Greer
  • grandchildren
  • graveyards
  • guest post
  • haiga
  • haiku
  • Handkerchief Beach
  • Hervey Bay
  • history
  • hotchpotch
  • I wonder …
  • in memoriam
  • invitation
  • iPhoneography
  • iPhonephotos
  • iPhotography
  • It
  • Janek and Maja
  • Jemisons Headland
  • Jordan
  • journeys
  • K'gari, Fraser Island
  • Kianga Beach
  • Kuranda
  • lake walk
  • Lightroom
  • Liston
  • Melbourne
  • memoir
  • memories
  • miscellaneous
  • Moruya
  • Mossman
  • Mossman Gorge
  • movie
  • movies
  • museums
  • music
  • Narooma
  • National Gallery of Australia
  • national park
  • national parks
  • native orchids
  • Nelson, Victoria
  • new learning
  • Newcastle
  • Northern Queensland
  • only words
  • opera
  • orchids
  • passions series
  • performances
  • phoneography
  • photo
  • photos
  • photos by other people
  • photos by Rosemary Barnard
  • photos by TRT
  • plants
  • poetry
  • Port Douglas
  • portrait gallery
  • possum skin cloak
  • post-processing
  • Postcards from the past
  • Potato Point beach
  • Prue
  • public art
  • Queensland
  • rainforest
  • Reef Beach
  • reflection
  • relaxation
  • road trip
  • ruins
  • saltmarsh
  • series
  • someone else's photos
  • Stanthorpe
  • street art
  • Sydney
  • Syria
  • theme
  • things I didn't know
  • through the windscreen
  • Thursday's special
  • tranquility
  • travel theme
  • Uncategorized
  • video
  • Warsaw
  • waystations
  • Wellington
  • Western Victoria
  • what next?
  • women I admire
  • Wordless walk
  • wordless walks
  • words
  • words only
  • writing

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • snippetsandsnaps
    • Join 410 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • snippetsandsnaps
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...