Echidna tatu design...

The gentler bay...

The music lovin' Rhubarb, and I wandered down to Tallows beach for a swim the other day, but the water was stirred up and rough so we decided to head for the bay. Not sure if we smelled, or simply that it was close to the middle of the day and folks were being sun smart, either way, the beach cleared, pretty much just leaving us and several surf schools amidst the waves. The bay was gentler, and kindly turned on its picturesque nature for all and any to see. In the distance, mountains, one of which formed the centre of the volcano so pivotal in forming the landscape and soils of this area.

Spring beach walk observations....

This is the time of migrating whales, journeying with their calves, along the coast where we live. If youre lucky, it also helps to be up high, you can watch them play. Huge flippers and tails slap on the waters surface erupting in white wash, spouts spray into the air above. It really seems like pure ecstatic fun, i cant see what practical purpose it serves except perhaps to knock loose the odd barnacle. Humpback whales are bigger than any dinosaur that lived, when you see them next to boats or surfers, this reality comes home.

The migrating terns have also reappeared once more, with their black caps and pointy beaks. They are consumate fishermen able to dive from a height into the waves and surface bearing fish. They fold their wings and become arrows of accuracy.

Along the beach jellyfish wash up. This week I saw a blue 'man of war' type one that was easily half a metre across, wouldnt want to swim into him. One day along the tide mark was what at first seemed like a line of jewels, glistening in the sunlight, they were infact tiny clear juvenile jellyfish.

An array of sea worn pebbles are carried and delicately deposited onto the sand by the waves. Seemingly infinte in the variety of colours and markings as I walk my gaze is draw to them, often I gather one up into my palm and walk with it a while, some come home with me. A cornicopia of stonelike variety.

We live where an ancient volcanoes edge of lava once would have met the sea and I imagine the cooling process as I look at rocks beside the ocean. Fire and water frozen in time, forces of motion fossilised into one moment.