Weekly photo challenge: Rise/Set

For the last three years we’ve gotten up early on Christmas Day to head to the beach for sunrise. It has become a ritual for us, we load the car up with towels for us and the dog, fill our takeaway cups with fresh coffee and I make sure my camera is ready to go. Leading up to Christmas is always a mad rush of last minute shopping, tying up loose ends at work and preparing for visitors. The beach is relatively peaceful and quiet at sunrise, it is a beautiful and calming way to start the day.

This is my contribution to the weekly photo challenge

Cheers!

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Weekly photo challenge: I’d rather be…

This week’s photo challenge encourages participating bloggers to think about where they would rather be at this moment. For me it is a no-brainer and although there are times when I wish I was in Paris or Venice or the highlands of Scotland, if given the choice I would rather be beside my little mate Bundy.

Travel is grand, a weekend away a delight but I hate leaving Bundy behind and wherever I go I wish I could have him with me. With Bundy I am never alone, even when he is sound asleep and seeing his happy face as he runs across the sand or grass fills my heart with joy.

Wordless Wednesday: Summer

Summer is early morning walks on the beach with Bundy

Wordless Wednesday: beach time

Swell Festival 2016 – part 2

On my last post I shared some of the sculptures featured in the Swell 2016 Sculpture Festival. As promised, here is a part two of my selection of images.

Pyramid made of bread cartons

Project Bread

Currumbin Beach

View of Surfers Paradise from Currumbin Rock

Venomous Blue – Blue ringed octopus

Burleigh beach walk

Easter in Australia means a 4 day weekend, we have a public holiday on Good Friday and another on Easter Monday. It is usually a time when people pack their family into their car and head off to visit extended family or head to the beach to make the most of the warm weather before Autumn kicks in. We generally stay home, relaxing and avoiding traffic the main aim. Sometimes family pop in for a visit however this year it was just the two of us with our two black doggies, a nice break after a hectic start to the year.

Even though the house was void of visitors we still fit in some quality time with family. Hubby’s sister and her family had booked into an apartment at Burleigh Heads on the southern end of the Gold Coast. It is a great spot and from their apartment it is a short walk to the beach, cafes and a variety of small, non-franchised shops. On Monday morning we set the alarm for early, left Maxi snoozing on her bed and took Bundy to the beach to see the sunrise and join Hubby’s sister K for a walk. It was a perfect morning, the predicted rain never appeared and there was wonderful cloud formations happening which made the sunrise so much more interesting.

There is a path along the esplanade that leads into Burleigh National Park, dogs aren’t allowed in the National Park so we stopped at the top of Burleigh headlands and joined many others in admiring and photographing the sunrise. Some photographers were there to take photos of the surfers out in the water, I have to say that I did feel a little lens envy when I saw the zoom on their cameras. Turning around we headed north, choosing to walk on the sand rather than continue on the footpath. Bundy loves the beach, he’s not too fond of swimming but he loves zig-zagging through the water and the sand, oblivious to everyone passing by. He is such a happy chappy when out and about and if given a chance he’ll say hello to other dogs and engage them in play for a short while, however he does prefer to hang with his two legged friends.

It was a beautiful way to spend the last morning of our long weekend, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter as well.

 

 

A Merry Queensland Christmas

Merry Christmas to you all from Two Black Dogs! In contrast to the snow and Gluhwein we enjoyed at the Christmas markets in Europe, our Christmas day began with a trip to the beach. Breakfast was baked ham and eggs on toast accompanied by a glass of Australian sparkling wine. Thankfully the weather has been good to us and it is a mild, slightly breezy day with moments of blue sky and sunshine.

Maxi and Bundy love the beach, Maxi returns to her puppy-hood and bounces across the sand and through the water. The dear old girl never looks happier than when she is at the beach. Bundy just enjoys running, sniffing and splashing around, a swimmer he is not. At home they’re sleeping soundly, recovering from an exciting morning and dreaming of their next adventure.

Wishing you a day filled with love and laughter! Be safe and be happy xox

off to the beach on Christmas morning

Bundy is a splasher not a swimmer

  

Bundy and his new stuffy

  

Maxi loves the beach

  

Santa comes to Bundy

  

Bundy and his Mama in her new Christmas shirt

 

Bundy let loose at the beach

Normally I don’t like letting Bundy off his leash in public areas, there are a number of reasons for this but primarily I don’t want him accused of being aggressive because he is a staffy. Bundy is great with other dogs and generally ignores the noisy, over-excited ones when we go for a walk, however he does not like them trying to get amorous with him and he will tell them where to go in a not-so-polite fashion. Knowing this makes me a little anxious. My husband is completely the opposite so when we took Bundy to a dog friendly part of the beach recently he spent the majority of the time off lead, zig-zagging across the sand and running up to greet any person who walked by. There were only a few dogs around and for the most part Bundy ignored them, he is much more focused on being with us now that he is older and less inclined (thank goodness) to take off and disappear into the dunes. There was one large dog that he took a liking to, they played around on the top of a sand dune before zooming down the dune towards the water, I am shooting more in manual mode now and was too slow to capture their fun on my camera but I did get one shot, albeit incredibly contrasty (technical term 😉 ).

Wading and loving it!

What a place for dogs to play

Not too sure about the waves, even the little ones

Looking for Dad

Riding the waves

Zooming down to the surf

Happy face

Hey Mum! You coming?

Happy boy

So excited

Bunburra: Indigenous touch football festival on the beach

Bunburra means beach in Yugambeh, the language of the Kombumerri, Traditional Custodians of the Gold Coast region. Earlier this month 20 touch football teams from across Queensland came together on the Gold Coast for the inaugural Bunburra Indigenous Beach Touch Football tournament on the Surfers Paradise beachfront. The players were aged between 14 and 17 years of age and represented areas including Inala, Bundaberg, Logan and Thursday Island and were joined by NRL legend Petero Civoniceva, Ambassador for the event and fellow NRL great, Scott Prince.

My role in this event? Nil, although I did have the opportunity to learn from local photography teacher Danielle Lancaster of Bluedog Photography, whilst taking photos of the event. Danielle was there as part of an arrangement with PCYC Queensland and the Indigenous Special Projects Coordinator. Photographing sport on the beach is not something I’ve done before and in the evening there was a spectacular fireworks display, something else I’ve never had the chance to photograph.

It was a magical day for all involved with plenty of competition, big smiles, traditionally cooked food, a fire lighting ceremony and dancing on the sand. These are some of my shots from this memorable event.

Two black doggies go to the beach

Summer means going to the beach and our doggies just love the beach. Loading up the car with bottles of water, portable drinking bowl and towels we headed off to the coast early in the morning to avoid traffic and the hordes of people that usually end up at the beach mid-morning. Bundy loves a car trip regardless of the destination, but Maxi knew that we were going somewhere special and once we got closer she could smell the salt air and her happy, excited face appeared.

Parking spots aplenty at that hour of the day, we chose a great spot by the water and under shade. As soon as the dogs were out of the car it was noses to the ground and it took all my strength to stop them from dragging me down to the water while Marty unloaded the necessary gear. Maxi loves to swim, Bundy loves to wade, Maxi and Bundy both love to roll in stinky dead things that they dig up and they both always end up covered in sand.

The car ride home is always a quiet one, Bundy lies down for a nap on the back seat and Maxi settles in her position so she can look out the window. Happy, tired dogs 🙂