After 75mm of rain in the last day or so I took the opportunity to see how the local creek had responded. Balcombe Creek runs down from the slopes of Mt Eliza and is usually a slow moving flow. Yesterday morning it looked more like a river, running into Port Phillip Bay and discolouring the bay with the sediment and soil washed out.
It was nice to be able to get outside for a few hours after a very wet week.
Upstream, the moving, swirling water flows to the bay.
A beautiful morning with a south-easterly blowing offshore. At the the point, just south of Fishermans Beach, watching Gannet diving for fish. White against the steel blue sea, they disappear into the sky as they edge against the wind and then come full into focus again with their white bodies just before the plunge.
They were a fair way out but it was nice to see them and I watched for a long time.
A walk along the beach on just about the shortest day of the year, tiny waves pulsing in from nowhere, hypnotic.
Intense blues walking above Hawker Beach early this morning. There’s a strong offshore blowing and, beyond the shelter of the shoreline, I see the swirls of wind on the water in sprays and eddies, like watercolour paint booms, the sheoak in the foreground.
Refreshing the spirit
First day of the mid-year holidays after a busy term’s teaching, finishing up with lots of report writing and deadlines.
So, nice on a cold Saturday morning next day to walk along the edge of the bay from Mt Martha to Mornington and enjoy the wind and the bay in my head.
Too windy to ride I decided and, while I like getting out on the bike, there’s something more contemplative possible when you’re seeing the landscape at walking pace. I took some photos along the way and blended them into this short movie to start the holidays.
It’s not normal for me to give something of a weather report, but there’s something about a wild and windy day, and the coldest Melbourne day in a year or so, that reminds us of those natural forces that go unnoticed most of our daily lives. It was nice to be around the bay today, to catch glimpses of its grey wilderness during the few times I ventured out. The bay, and the weather, have been inspirations for me for a long time. I never get tired of it; in fact quite the reverse, the more I come back to those familiar, local places, the more interested I become in them.
thinking about poetry 