The Ramblings of a Bush Philosopher

Clare Valley Photo Gallery

This page has been superseded by my Flickr set Clare Valley.

Click on the pictures that have a bright border to see them full size. Then use the 'back' button to return to this page.

Also see photos of wildflowers in the Clare Valley in Wildflowers.

Photographs of other areas or subjects are available via the home page.

The Clare Valley

It is in the state of South Australia, about 150km north of the capital city, Adelaide.

On Elysium

From the Clare-Blyth road, at the top of the descent onto the Blyth Plain. Unusually, the plain is hidden by the haze.

Condowie Plain On the western side of the Clare Valley, and at a couple hundred metres lower altitude, is the Condowie Plain, on which is the small town of Blyth. This is the view from the point where the road starts to wind down the hillside toward Blyth.

The summer grass is dry.

The Blyth Plain, winter

From further down the Blyth road

This is a beautiful view. On this day I took about eight photos. It was difficult to pick the best, I don't think any lived up to my best expectations. The back lighting makes imagining the result difficult.

Evening of 27^th August 2003

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From Brookes Lookout

Floyd and Margret Brookes kindly allowed this area to be developed as a reserve and lookout; I think in 2002.

Photo morning of 28^th August 2003

On the 'big hill', Elysium.

The photo is taken into the light and there is a low mist.

From the 'big hill'

The camera is beneath a carrob tree. On Elysium.

Home dam, Elysium

Whether the dam filled in 2003 was a fairly close thing. It did finally fill about late August.

about 27^th August 2003

This is a scene near the village of Armagh which is five kilometres from the town of Clare, South Australia. Both Clare and Armagh are named after their counterparts in Ireland.

This photo and many others scattered through this web site were taken on my property 'Elysium'.

The Clare Valley is one of the smaller wine growing areas in Australia, but produces some of the highest quality wines. One Clare wine maker, Jeffrey Grossett, was rated top in the world a couple of years ago.

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Unlike most of the north and west of South Australia, which generally has low humidity, morning fogs and mists are common in the Clare Valley in winter.

This view is from my shack on Elysium looking toward the north on one early winter's morning.

Eucalyptus leucoxylon (South Australian bluegum) trees on Jacob's Range Road, south of Armagh. This is more a track than a road, it gets little motor traffic and is ideal for cycling.

Here are some more beautiful bluegums on Jacob's Range Road. These two photos were taken toward sunset.

In general I much prefer the light when the sun is no more than about fifteen degrees above the horizon.

Advice sometimes given to photographers is:

• Don't take photos within an hour of sunrise, nor less than an hour from sunset.
• Don't take photos toward the sun.

When we bought Elysium in 1993 there was about a hectare of Pinus radiata on the place; these are in the background in this photo. Soon after we planted, among other species, quite a few redgums; these are the young trees in the foreground.

This photo breaks the rule about taking photos into the light. The result is that the trees are almost silhouetted, one can see the rays of sunlight coming through the thin mist, and the new leaves on the young gums show their colours well.

We planted a small (1.3ha) vineyard of Shiraz wine grapes in 1999 and expanded by another 0.7ha two years later.

Here is some of the first crop, ready to pick, in about February 2001.

Grape vines seem to suit the soils of the Clare Valley very well, while many fruit trees need to be pampered to survive and produce.

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An early winter's morning photo looking into the rising sun, with a light mist in the air.

The grass is dewy, but not covered with frost.

We pump some water for small-scale irrigation from the dam which has been planted with native ground-covers, shrubs and small trees.

Elysium in the early morning again. The sheep were obliging enough to stand in the foreground. (Shortly later, a fox came out of hiding and sent the sheep running off.)

Sheep are a necessary evil at Elysium. They have done a huge amount of damage to the trees that I've planted, but without them the grass would grow so thick and tall that it would cause an unacceptable fire risk.

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I like the way the big bluegum is silhouetted against the light, the colours in the new spring foliage of the young redgums, and the sun shining through the pine trees and thin mist in the background.

Most of the dams in the Clare Valley filled in 2001. This is looking over my 'Home Dam' across the Blyth road toward my neighbor's dam to the north. His dam does not usually fill until mine has.

Again, the sheep were being very obliging.

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At the end of the day there is the sunset.

Always more beautiful with the open horizons of the country than in the cluttered city.

This is the same sunset as the photo above; the light changing over a period of minutes, and the colours varying in different directions.

After the sun has gone you might see the Moon and Venus

From Elysium, a Hardenbergia violacia in the foreground.

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