paddling south australia

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After the Storm

It’s raining again this morning. Lovely, beautiful, thirst quenching rain on the land that has suffered 2 years of drought. It’s not enough to call it the “breaking of the drought” but it is certainly welcome. The only problem is that the storm that preceded the rain did a lot of damage to the foreshore and infrastructure. Beaches were scoured of sand, jetties were washed away and sea beds damaged.

But there is always a bright side. After the storm the wind would calm and the waves would be glassy. The swell had dropped but there was still some fun waves to be had.

The beach was deserted, except for a couple of dog walkers, and the sand had been scoured exposing lots of the under lying rock structure.

Three intrepid paddlers, wearing every bit of thermal clothing they owned, made their way down the cliff track and launched into a grey cloud covered ocean. There were nice sets of “overhead” height waves to be conquered.

Hopefully the rain will hold off
Seaweed Steve is the first out with Berny close behind
Seaweed Steve jumps on a small wave

Charles joins in with a nice wave choice.

Nice one Charles

Berny picks a nice one, getting in close to the breaking wave.

Then it was Charles’s turn to show his class act.

Nice boat lean Charles
OK, so that’s how it’s done
Berny having fun

After his sea bed inspection, Charles jumps on a clean wave.

Seaweed Steve is always happy when he’s on a wave.

Now you may ask how Seaweed Steve got his name. His helmet is always adorned with some sort of sea bed growth ! He’s a musician by trade, so we excuse him for all sorts of stuff.

Hope you have a great day, especially if you get on the water.

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The Grumpies

Yes we are a little grumpy today. Despite my explicit instructions to the weather gods (c.c. to Elon) for light winds and big swells, we arrived to gusting winds and a fading swell.

The 4 grumpy paddlers decided to make the best of it and head out through the shore break and have a chat to the local dolphin pod. I suppose we shouldn’t be too grumpy as we at least surfed a few waves, and promised Robyn coffee and cake if she wielded the camera.

Anyway, here’s the results.

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It’s mid Summer

The wind is swirling around the trees, coming from all directions at once. The heat of the morning causes air currents to rush between the hot land and cool water, giving me a hard time controlling the kayak in the cross winds. Then it increases and turns head on as I cross towards the finish, giving me a final work out.

It started out such a nice morning paddle

It’s mid Summer in southern Australia so you expect hot dry northerly winds to pop up unexpectedly. We get the dry conditions whilst northern Australia get torrential rain, with cyclone Sean threatening the north west coast. I think I choose the dry rather than the wet.

My training session started well with calm conditions and intentions of a 10km steady cadence paddle and finish with short sprints. It’s been 30 odd years since I paddled a K1 race kayak. What was I thinking when I decided to get back into a fast, unstable racer and try Wild Water Kayak Racing ?. The experts say you need to keep active as the years creep up and I’m certainly feeling the activity this morning, with lots of power needed in the sprints as well as core strength to keep this damn thing upright.

Some of the locals came down to investigate as I launched the kayak.

Hey what’s this guy up to ?
Calm conditions early in the session

It was quite calm early in the paddle and I even relaxed a little to take in the scenery. Passing close to the old tower was interesting, however, I hadn’t counted on the swirling current at its base.

The tower has a little lean but the weather vain still works. It has been underwater since 1897 when the small village was flooded to create water storage.

Here’s the Tower before inundation

Training finished

Training finished. So now we can concentrate on coffee and cake and showing off my great heart rate and speed stats from my smart watch. Oh bugger, I pressed the wrong button, again. “Session deleted”. I need glasses !

The only rough water training I’ve had lately is playing around in the surf, which I hope will help me when I hit the rapids later in the year. Here’s a short video of our small surf fun.
Have a great mid Summer day.

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Still Life

Still life photography is a genre of photography used for the depiction of inanimate subject matter, typically a small group of objects. Similar to still life painting, it is the application of photography to the still life artistic style. (Wikipedia)

That’s the Wikipedia definition , however, our definition is “depiction of subject matter, typically a small group of objects, often in an outdoor environment”, which gives us a lot more scope when we are travelling the countryside.

Of course it may just be a solitary object.

Pontoon Reflections

Not always in the traditional presentation, but certainly outdoors. Taken in a different mode the trees take on an eerie feel and depict the density of the forest.

The deserted forest

Certainly Still Life, under our definition, doesn’t have to be inanimate objects.

Definition: adjective. not animate; lifeless. Synonyms: dead, inert, mineral, vegetable, inorganic. spiritless; sluggish; dull.

I’ve been called a few names, but I hope inanimate is not one of them. After more than a month banging around the Mountain Bike Parks we return home to catch some more Still Life, actually more like Frozen than Still. Frozen that moment in time and Frozen because it was damn cold on the water.

Maybe the waves are looking “inanimate” : dead, lifeless
Then they spring into life
Berny tames a small wave
Steve tries his luck on a small barrelling wave…and loses
Ian tries a forward loop…and fails
Berny proves he can work a small wave…whilst holding his breath
Steve slides into another nice one

We call it Still Life Outdoors, which can take many forms, although don’t stay Still for too long or you will become another one of Berny’s “hit and run” victims.

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Barbie goes paddling

The Barbie movie is about to hit the screen and we took our own “Barbie kayak” out for a splash around.

Well actually it’s a Jackson Rockstar V but with all the pink colour it’s certainly worthy of the Barbie name.

I’m not sure Barbie approved of the weather with a cold 8 degrees C and light rain but what the heck, we were out there celebrating the cold.

Another amazing fact. Barbie and I have the same birthday. When I was younger some people compared me to Ken, but now I think I’m more “Ken Oath” than Ken. (work out the Aussie slang you foreigners. Yes, it’s rude).

Anyway have a great Barbie Day.

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Welcome Winter

Winter is with us again. Those sunny days of Autumn are gone. No more lazing around in shorts and T shirts, it’s back to fleece jackets and beanies.

We have been travelling for a couple of months, paddling sea kayaks, bush walking and riding mountain bikes as well as some photography sessions. If you missed the sea kayak article it’s here and bike riding in the northern Flinders Ranges is here.

Our latest attempts in photography try to capture the landscape in a more abstract way . What do you think ?

Back home for a while I drag out the playboat and head out for a short session.

The beach is deserted except for a couple of dogs chasing a ball. No one else in the water today, probably because it’s chilly and only us retirees get “Fridays free time”. The swell has also deserted the beach but I still manage a few rides and get my head wet.

I find Steve (King of England) had the same idea and was already on the waves.

Robyn managed to get some video of the small wave session. We enjoyed our first winter session and hope to fit in many more between sea kayaking, mountain biking and coffee and croissants.