Balnarring Beach Cape Schanck for Sunday Best

 

At Balnarring Beach, the tide recently retreated farther than it does for most of the year, unveiling a hidden landscape that usually lies beneath restless water. What emerged was not smooth sand or gentle shoreline, but a rugged seabed — a terrain of sharp, ancient stones scattered like broken bones of the ocean. Dark rocks, slick with salt and time, carried the weight of countless tides that had passed unnoticed above them.

Sea plants and tangled weeds draped themselves over the jagged surfaces, softening the harsh edges with wavering greens and browns. Some clung stubbornly to crevices, their fronds trembling in the wind now that the sea had momentarily abandoned them. Others lay sprawled across the rocks like forgotten ribbons, glistening under a thin sheen of trapped water.

Walking across this exposed floor felt like trespassing into a private world — one that belongs to currents, shells, and silent creatures rather than human feet. The air carried a thick, briny scent, and every step revealed textures rarely seen: rough, slippery, alive with hidden movement. For a brief moment between tides, the ocean’s secret architecture was laid bare — raw, untamed, and quietly beautiful, reminding us that beneath the familiar waves lies a harsher, more intricate world waiting patiently to be covered again.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sunday Best

Gull at Kilcunda Beach Gippsland for Saturday Critter

 

My left knee has decided to slow me down—an uninvited editor cutting movement from my days. So this week I stayed close to stillness, watching rather than chasing, waiting rather than wandering. The body sets its own tempo when it hurts; the world grows quieter when you have no choice but to listen.

I went back through my photographs looking for a critter to post, something lively enough to stand in for the adventures I cannot currently have. None appeared. Instead, I found a sea gull suspended in the amber hush of a Kilcunda sunset in Gippsland—a moment I hadn’t planned to keep, taken while I was really chasing the falling light. The gull was an accident, a white interruption against a sky dissolving into copper and violet.

Looking at it now, I realise how honest that image feels. The bird is neither majestic nor rare. It is simply present, riding the coastal wind with the confidence of something that belongs entirely to the moment. Behind it, the sea darkens, the horizon softens, and the day closes without ceremony.

Injury narrows the world, but it also sharpens attention. I notice the quiet resilience of small things: the rhythm of waves, the way salt air moves through memory, the fact that even an unintended photograph can carry a story forward. The gull becomes a stand-in for motion while I remain still—a reminder that the world keeps moving, and that I will too, eventually.

For now, I hold onto that sunset and its accidental companion, letting the image do the walking my knee cannot.

Sony A7III

Canon 300mm f4 

Linking Saturday Critter

Brighton Beach Sunset Melbourne for Water H2O Thursday

 

Last week was marked by unsettled weather, which led me to remain at home. During this time, Joel and I exchanged messages and shared recommendations on a range of political podcasts, comparing perspectives and formats that we each found engaging.

The photograph itself may be regarded as visually distracting by conventional standards, as the foreground is dominated by out-of-focus branches rendered in pronounced bokeh. In traditional or classical photography, such foreground obstruction is often discouraged, as it can divert attention from the primary subject and disrupt compositional clarity. However, I do not find this problematic. On the contrary, the layered blur introduces a sense of depth and visual tension, challenging the expectation of a clean, unobstructed frame. I tend to lose interest in images that are overly polished or pristine, unless they deliberately embrace a minimalist aesthetic. In this context, the intrusion of foreground bokeh becomes an expressive choice rather than a flaw, resisting classical norms in favour of a more personal and interpretive visual language.

Sony A7RV

FE 70-200mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Brighton Beach, Melbourne for Skywatch Friday

 

At the same stretch of Brighton Beach, where the horizon usually softens into pale blues and orderly pastels, the sunset arrived transformed. The sky did not fade so much as ignite. Persistent bushfires burning through the rural hinterlands had filled the air with smoke fine enough to filter the light, and the sun, lowered to the edge of the world, surrendered its usual brilliance to something deeper and more elemental.

The evening unfolded in layers of orange and molten gold. Smoke scattered the shorter wavelengths of light, leaving behind a spectrum that felt both sumptuous and unsettling. The sea mirrored this altered sky, its surface burnished, as if the day itself were being smelted into colour before it disappeared. What might have been a routine coastal dusk became a spectacle born of distance and destruction—fire shaping beauty far from its source.

There was a quiet tension in that moment. The sky’s richness carried the knowledge of burning forests, of heat and wind moving through rural valleys, of lives and landscapes under strain. And yet, standing on the sand, the light was undeniably arresting: a reminder of how intimately connected city and countryside are, how the atmosphere carries stories across hundreds of kilometres. Brighton’s sunset that evening was not just a closing of the day, but a visible trace of fire, climate, and land—an amber testament to a season that refuses to stay in the background.

Sony A7RV

FE 70-200mm f4 G

Check out Skywatch Friday

Balnarring Beach Cape Schanck for Sunday Best

 

Here are some more frames from Balnarring Beach, looking toward Cape Schanck, taken as the day eased into its last light. Joel appears again in the frame, a familiar figure against the widening horizon as I caught the sunset.

The tide had drawn back, leaving the flats exposed and reflective, a broad sheet of muted silver and bronze that carried the sky downward into the earth. To the south, Cape Schanck held its quiet authority, the dark outline of the headland and its cliffs marking the edge where Bass Strait begins to assert itself. This stretch of coast has always been a place of meeting: calm bay and restless ocean, soft sand giving way to ancient basalt shaped by wind and surge over thousands of years.

As the sun lowered, the light thinned and cooled, spreading long shadows across the beach. Joel’s presence anchored the scene, a human scale set against the immensity of sea and sky, momentary and transient in a landscape that measures time differently. The salt air, the distant sound of water moving over rock, and the slow extinguishing of colour combined into that brief, suspended stillness that belongs only to sunset on this part of the Mornington Peninsula.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sunday Best

Bridgewater Bay Blairgowrie for Treasure Tuesday

 

Bridgewater Bay reveals a quieter temperament in this light, as if the coastline itself has agreed to pause. The long exposure smooths the restless surface into a sheet of silk, disguising the true mood of the water, which only moments before had been choppy and impatient. What remains is an illusion of calm, a visual courtesy offered by time stretched thin, where motion is not denied but gently persuaded into stillness.

At sunset, the bay becomes a natural archive of colour. The sky spills amber, rose, and indigo into the shallows, and the water receives them without argument, holding each hue briefly before surrendering it to dusk. This hour has always belonged to transition: day loosening its grip, night arriving without ceremony. It is the most honest time to see the land, when contrasts soften and everything appears briefly reconciled.

Bridgewater Bay sits along a coast shaped by endurance rather than spectacle. Its limestone platforms were laid down millions of years ago when this land lay beneath a shallow sea, built slowly from compressed shells and marine life. Wind and tide have since worked with patient insistence, carving the rock into shelves and pools, opening crevices where salt-tolerant plants take hold and seabirds rest between flights. The bay has long served as a refuge—first for marine life in its calmer pockets, later for people drawn to its relative shelter along the Mornington Peninsula’s exposed edge.

Even now, the place carries that layered memory. The stillness seen here is not permanent; it is borrowed. Soon the water will resume its chatter against stone, and the colours will drain from the sky. Yet for a moment, Bridgewater Bay allows itself to be seen as something almost contemplative—a meeting point of geology, light, and time, where the sea briefly pretends to be at rest.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Bridgewater Bay Blairgowrie revisit for Water H2O Thursday

 

Bridgewater Bay at low tide reveals itself as a quiet benediction to those who look closely. As the sea withdraws, the shoreline lengthens and the bay exhales, uncovering a broad intertidal canvas where light, stone, and water enter into a slow and deliberate conversation. For photographers, this brief interval is a gift: the land pauses between immersion and exposure, offering forms and textures usually kept beneath the surface.

Here, the geology speaks with particular clarity. The ancient limestone platforms, shaped over millennia by the patient abrasion of Southern Ocean swells, emerge as pale, sculptural planes. Their surfaces are etched with fissures, shallow pools, and scalloped edges—evidence of long erosion and periodic collapse. These calcarenite formations, born of compacted marine sediments and shell fragments, carry the memory of a time when this coast lay submerged under warmer seas. At low tide, they stand exposed and vulnerable, momentarily reclaimed by the air and the sun.

The rock pools become small, reflective worlds in themselves, holding fragments of sky and drifting cloud. Seaweed clings to the stone in muted greens and rusted reds, softening the hard geometry of the rock. The water, now stilled and shallow, behaves less like an ocean and more like a mirror, catching the changing angle of light and returning it with gentleness. Every step across the platform requires attentiveness; the ground is uneven, alive with detail, and quietly insistent on respect.

Both Joel and I found ourselves moving slowly, unhurried, as if the landscape demanded a different measure of time. The camera became less an instrument of capture and more a means of listening. Each frame felt earned—shaped by the tide’s retreat, the low winter sun, and the restrained palette of the Mornington Peninsula coast. There was no need for spectacle; the power of Bridgewater Bay lies in its restraint.

When the tide eventually turns and the sea advances once more, the limestone will disappear beneath the water, and the bay will resume its familiar outline. Yet for those who have walked it at low tide, the memory lingers: a sense of having witnessed the coast in a more intimate state, where geology, light, and human attention briefly align.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Bridgewater Bay Sunset Blairgowrie for Skywatch Friday

 

This, the final frame, was taken ere I departed the bay, ere darkness fell and made perilous the walk upon the exposed sea-floor. Bridgewater Bay, with its sands laid bare by the retiring tide, bears the memory of countless ages—fishermen of old, skiffs gliding over these waters, and the early settlers of Blairgowrie, who first tamed these shores. Even as the light waned, the gentle murmur of the sea seemed to recount their stories, and I lingered, mindful of the history written in every ripple and grain of sand. 

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Bridgewater Bay Blairgowrie for Water H2O Thursday

 

As the new year turns, I have resolved to lay down two moderator roles on photographers’ Instagram pages. The labour has grown too heavy, and after five years of steady commitment—begun in the long shadow of the COVID period—it is time to relinquish those duties and reclaim some quiet measure of balance.

This photograph was taken at an old, familiar vantage point overlooking Bridgewater Bay in Blairgowrie. The infrared rendering, for all its interest, could not summon the same atmosphere or grace. Even so, the journey itself was not ill-spent. If anything, I was tempted by excess—hoping to draw two distinct visions from a single visit, and learning, perhaps, that one honest frame is sometimes enough.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Bridgewater Visit before Christmas for Water H2O Thursday

 

Joel and I gifted ourselves a pause, tucked close to the Christmas season, a quiet agreement to step away and wait for the land to open again. For seven long weeks, Saturdays—the day we reserve for wandering—were washed out by relentless rain, the kind that pins you indoors and dulls the edges of anticipation. But at last, the weather shifted. The tide fell to its lowest breath, and the forecast promised storms by the following day, the sort that, by our own well-tested superstition, paint the sky in bruised reds and ember tones before breaking.

On Christmas Day, we will walk toward Bushranger Bay, answering that long-held pull toward open air and salt wind. It feels earned, this return to movement, to rock and water and horizon, after so much stillness.

Nearby, Bridgewater Bay at Blairgowrie holds its own quiet authority. Sheltered and wide, it is a place where pale limestone meets calm, glassy water, where the bay softens the force of Bass Strait into something contemplative. The shallows reveal ribbons of seagrass and pale sandbars at low tide, and the headlands stand watch like old sentinels, weathered and patient. Even when storms loom offshore, Bridgewater Bay often rests in a deceptive calm, as though holding its breath while the sky gathers itself.

After weeks of watching rain stitch the windows shut, the thought of standing there—boots on stone, wind lifting the scent of salt, the sky tinged red with coming weather—feels almost ceremonial. A return to the outdoors, to the quiet drama of coast and tide, and to the simple, sustaining act of going out together again.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Pearses Bay Sunset Blairgowrie for Skywatch Friday

 

No clouds—only a brief, transient wash of cyan and pink in the sky, lingering for a moment before the light gives way to complete darkness. At Pearses Bay, dusk arrives cleanly, without ceremony, as though the day knows it has said enough.

For Joel and me, this small bay has always been the easiest pause from the city: a place where the air feels older, less disturbed. Long before it became a convenient refuge, the shoreline carried other lives and rhythms. The water remembers them. The bay once fed and sheltered people who read tide and season as instinct, who left no monuments except paths worn into the land and stories held in memory. Later came boats, industry, and the measured ambitions of settlement, each leaving its own faint mark—names, pylons, remnants half-claimed by salt and weed.

Standing here now, the past feels close, not dramatic but persistent. The hush after sunset seems layered, as if the quiet itself has been used before. Footsteps fade, conversations soften, and the bay resumes its long habit of waiting. In that waiting, Pearses Bay offers more than fresh air; it offers continuity—a reminder that the city is only the most recent chapter, and that even in a brief moment of color before night, the land is still telling its older story.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Bridgewater Bay Blairgowrie for Skywatch Friday

 

Not much cloud gathered above Bridgewater Bay that day in Blairgowrie, just a clean, pale sky opening toward the horizon — but the sun dipped at the perfect angle, and I managed to catch a tight little sunstar flaring between the rocks. I kind of love it: that quiet brilliance, the way it sharpens the whole scene, turning the shoreline into something both wild and tender at once.

To get there from Melbourne’s CBD, the journey itself becomes part of the story. You slip onto the M1, heading south-east, and let the city gradually fall away behind you. At Frankston, the road becomes the Mornington Peninsula Freeway, carrying you through rolling stretches of coastal scrub and pockets of vineyard country. As you reach Rosebud, the landscape softens — tea-tree thickets, dunes, and glimpses of back-beach light. You turn onto Boneo Road, then onto Melbourne Road, and finally wind your way through Blairgowrie’s quiet streets until the sea begins to whisper its presence.

From the carpark near the end of St Johns Wood Road, a sandy path leads you through heathland and low coastal shrubs. The air smells of salt and sun-warmed limestone. Then the land suddenly opens, and Bridgewater Bay reveals itself: rugged rock shelves, tidal pools gleaming like hammered glass, and that western horizon where, if you’re patient and a little lucky, the sun breaks into a star just for you.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Flinders Blowhole Melbourne for Treasure Tuesday

 

I haven’t visited this place for some time, and yet Flinders Blowhole at Cape Schanck greets me as though no days have passed. The rugged coastline stretches in quiet defiance against the ceaseless surge of the Southern Ocean, and in the distance, a solitary, large rock rises like a sentinel over the restless waters. Each wave that rushes forward tumbles over its surface, forming a miniature waterfall that never ceases, a constant, shimmering cascade that mirrors the relentless heartbeat of the sea.

As the sun leans toward the horizon, the golden hour bathes everything in its tender, amber glow. The light catches each droplet, turning spray into scattered sparks, and sets the rock aglow with a warmth that belies the ocean’s chill. Shadows lengthen across the sand and jagged cliffs, and the sound of the surf—deep, rhythmic, and insistent—fills the air with a meditative cadence.

There is a quiet poetry in the way nature balances motion and stillness here: the steadfast rock, the ever-moving water, the sky’s fleeting palette of gold and rose. Each moment feels suspended, as if time itself slows to honor the simple, profound beauty of the scene. I linger, drawn by the hypnotic rhythm of waves and light, feeling both small and infinite in the embrace of Cape Schanck’s wild, luminous edge.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Mount Alexander Post Box for Skywatch Friday

 

A mackerel sky hangs over Mount Alexander, its blue-cyan wash streaked with soft brown, as though the heavens themselves remember the dust and mineral veins that once drew thousands here. The mountain rises with the quiet assurance of an old storyteller, carrying in its ridges the memory of the gold rush that transformed Bendigo and Castlemaine, when hopeful hands sifted soil and the world’s footsteps converged on this corner of Victoria.

Along the roadside, the rustic tin mailboxes stand like humble sentinels—weather-beaten, crooked, and utterly honest. They belong to a landscape where history is not polished but lived in, where every dent and patch of rust feels like a faint echo of the pickaxes, tents, and fevered dreams that once pressed into this earth. And as the sky ripples overhead, Mount Alexander feels close—not just in distance from your home, but in spirit, a familiar presence holding centuries of stories beneath its quiet, enduring form.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Cadillac Gorge San Remo for Skywatch Friday

 

The day at Cadillac Gorge unfolded beneath a brooding sky, the kind that promises both revelation and ruin. The rocks at the edge of San Remo glistened with the residue of centuries — dark volcanic shelves scarred by relentless tides, their surfaces mottled in lichen and salt. The wind carried the scent of brine and kelp, mingling with the low thunder of the Bass Strait. I had turned my lens toward the gorge, drawn to the strange geometry of stone carved by time and sea — but it was the sky that truly captivated me. The clouds swirled in elaborate layers, their forms restless and alive, the kind of sky that seems to think its own thoughts.

Five seconds later, the world turned. A rogue wave — silent until it wasn’t — rose from the depths like a living wall and struck the rocks with merciless force. I had no time to retreat. The surge crashed over me, drenching my gear, soaking through every seam and stitch, and in that instant, all sense of separation between self and sea dissolved. From the hill ridge behind, Joel was filming the scene — my small figure caught between water and wind, framed by the vast grey theatre of the Southern Ocean. Later, he said the footage looked almost staged — the sea claiming its own drama, the sky its witness — but in that moment, there was nothing contrived about it. Only the raw pulse of nature at Cadillac Gorge, San Remo — beautiful, treacherous, and impossibly alive.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Pearses Bay Blairgowrie for Water H2O Thursday

 

Joel and I lingered far too long at the souvlaki shop on our way here, and by the time we arrived, dusk had already deepened into shadow. We hurried to our respective corners, cameras in hand, striving to capture what little light remained before the sun slipped entirely beyond the horizon. There was no time for the elegance of long exposure—only swift, instinctive shots taken in haste.

In my rush, I stumbled and twisted my ankle, the sharp pain dulled only by the chill of water seeping into my shoes. Joel, ever steadfast, came to my aid—only to meet misfortune himself, slipping and taking a fall soon after. Thus the evening unfolded: a pursuit of fading light, marked by mishap and the quiet grace of shared endurance.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday

Pearses Bay Sunset moment for Treasure Tuesday

 

Last weekend, Joel immersed himself in the intensity of a Metallica concert, their first Australian tour in eleven years—a testament to his enduring devotion to heavy metal music. I, on the other hand, wandered the coastline alone, finding quiet solace in the rhythmic rise and fall of the high tide. Pearses Bay, now celebrated as a prime vantage for sunsets, cast its golden reflections across the water, offering the perfect scene for my photography and a gentle reminder of the beauty found in solitary exploration.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Treasure Tuesday

Stingray Bay Warrnambool sunset for Skywatch Friday

 

This small estuarine inlet adjoining Stingray Bay is a hidden gem, lying less than a kilometre from where I once stayed, with road access that remains remarkably convenient. The still waters below capture exquisite reflections of sky and vegetation, a mirror to the tranquility of the surrounding landscape.

Stingray Bay itself forms part of the sheltered mouth of the Merri River at Warrnambool, where freshwater mingles with the tides of the Southern Ocean. The area is renowned for its tidal flats and rock platforms, rich in marine life and bird activity — herons, cormorants, and sandpipers frequent the shallows, while stingrays glide silently over the sandy bottom from which the bay takes its name.

Along the inlet’s edge, the weathered wooden barrier now stands as more of an ornament than a necessity, its timbers softened by time and tide. Once built to define or protect, it now blends into the natural scene — a quiet relic of human purpose slowly yielding to nature’s rhythm.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Skywatch Friday

Valley in San Remo Gippsland for Sunday Best

 

All was green and veiled in mist, the soft radiance of the golden hour diffusing gently through the fog. The air shimmered with that rare union of stillness and light — when the day seems to pause between breath and memory. I lingered there on a Friday afternoon, content simply to witness the quiet splendour of San Remo, Gippsland — where sea and land speak in whispers.

This tranquil place rests upon the traditional lands of the Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation, whose ancestors walked these shores long before the tides carried new names to them. The cliffs, the grasses, and the mists all hold the memory of their presence — stories of fishing grounds, gathering places, and sacred connections that endure beyond time.

Amid the drifting fog and soft gleam of the sinking sun, it felt as though the land itself remembered — its ancient rhythm still pulsing beneath the calm green surface, inviting reflection and quiet reverence.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Sunday Best

Pearses Bay Blairgowrie for Water H2O Thursday

 

Melbourne has been drenched in unrelenting rain for the past fortnight, and Joel and I have grown restless, longing to venture out this weekend in search of new coastal sunsets to capture. Among the many memories of our past excursions, the view from Pearses Bay remains vivid in my mind.

Perched upon the overhanging cliff, I took the photograph as the sun sank low over the restless sea. My heart beat rapidly—not only from the precarious height beneath my feet but from the sheer beauty of the scene before me. The light that evening was golden and tender, bathing the rugged coastline in a warmth that seemed to defy the cool ocean breeze.

Pearses Bay, tucked away along the back beaches of the Mornington Peninsula, is a place of quiet splendour—remote, wind-swept, and largely untouched. The journey there winds through narrow sandy trails framed by coastal heath and scrub, where the scent of salt and tea tree hangs in the air. Few visitors make their way down to its crescent of pale sand, hemmed in by weathered limestone cliffs. Standing above it at sunset, one feels suspended between sea and sky—a moment of solitude and awe that lingers long after the light fades.

Sony A7RV

FE 20-70mm f4 G

Linking Water H2O Thursday