The local bushland is becoming off limits in the afternoon due to the snakes coming out of their winter hibernation with  the warm spring weather. It is still okay to walk in the bushland  in the early morning before sunrise when it  is cold or wet from the heavy dew.  

I notice that this  Rhizomes blog was neglected during the autumn/winter period this year -- there is a gap between March and August. There is even greater neglect  with The Littoral Zone blog. I'm  sure this neglect  was the result of me struggling to put  the walking and the photography together as a process-based  photographic project. 

The photo below was made in early September 2023 whilst I was on a poodlewalk  in the late afternoon with Maleko:

Going back through the archives Rhizomes  and seeing what  I had photographed in the local bush during that March-August period I can see that an immersive style of walking was emerging: one that was reactive to what was occurring around me, rather than going into the bushland to photograph a  particular object in certain lighting conditions that had been pre-visualised.

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This macro photo was made whilst I was on a hobbled walk in the local bushland. 

It was late in the afternoon. I have looked for this bark since, but I have never been able to find it. The winter winds would have prised it loose from the branch of the pink gum.  

Lying beside one of the paths  through  the local Waitpinga bushland  is a pile of bark. It has been there a while. The pink gums (Eucalyptus fasciculosa)  are shredding their  bark and the pile keeps changing due to the  strong coastal winds.    Occasionally, when I am walking  by whilst on a poodlewalk,  I casually toss another piece of bark onto the pile, to see what happens. 

I often photograph the pile when I'm walking past on my way  to  a photo session elsewhere in the bushland. On the occasion of this photo being taken it had been raining  in the early hours of the  morning in early January (6/1/22) and the bark was quite wet. The colours were more intense and saturated than normal.  It was the colour that caught my eye.  

This was made in the early morning in the local Waitpinga bushland. Or to be more precise it was 7.15 am on the 29th December 2021. It was one of the last photos I made in 2021. It was one of the few sunny mornings  of this cool and windy summer. 

Afterwards,  Kayla  and I  walked around the bushland for another 30 minutes taking the odd photo.   There was little traffic on Depledge Rd, or even on the central Waitpinga Rd to the beach and surf.  Depledge Rd and the roadside vegetation was dry and dusty -- it hadn't rained for a while. The main sound that morning was the buzzing of the bees.

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From an early morning poodlewalk with Kayla in the  local Waitpinga bushland in November 2021

We only explore  the  bushland in the early morning just after  sunrise,   due to  the prevalence of the eastern brown snakes. Even though it is cool that early in the morning we tread very carefully whilst keeping a sharp lookout. It is the Littoral Zone  for the afternoon poodlewalk with Maleko.  

There is an earlier picture of bark hanging from a branch here   

I took  a break from sitting in front of the  computer working on The Bowden Archives and Industrial Modernity book by wandering around the local bushland on a poodlewalk with Kayla. Sitting in front of the computer was getting to me. 

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It has been a cold,  wet, windy,   spring so far. We have had so much rain along the southern coast fo the Fleurieu Peninsula.   However, there were  a few days of fine weather between the days of steady rain in early October,  and so we were able to wander  around the local bushland in Waitpinga. 

This  picture was made  in the early morning inbetween  the rains sweeping across the coast:    

It  is a  grounded  branch of a pink gum in local bushland in Waitpinga.  The tree  is growing along the ground. 

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The morning of 2nd August was foggy and, after the  poodlewalk along Depledge Road  in Waitpinga with Kayla we  ended up  slowly walking around the local bushland : 

Foggy mornings like this are rare in the southern Fleurieu Peninsula. We have  only  had two such mornings this winter. 

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In the last week or so I  have been spending the early morning poodlewalks  with Kayla exploring a small patch of bushland as a contrast to the coastal rocks.  The bush  runs alongside Depledge Rd in Waitpinga,  and  I am assuming this patch has been put aside as a result of  the  Landcare moment in the late 20th century.  

On these bush walks I am using a handheld digital camera to build up some supplementary material for the forthcoming online walking /photography exhibition at Encounters Gallery.   This will  open in August as  a  part of the SALA Festival.  I am also using these walks to find some suitable subject matter for a 5x4 photo session. This is one session that has been done. In the first instance the  5x4 photos are for an upcoming online exhibition for the Friends of Photography Group in August.

When walking in the  bush reserve  I  follow the trails that have laid down by the kangaroos who crewe regular visitors to the bushland.    If I didn't walk their trails  iIwould be walking around in circles with no sense of where I was.  

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