Avoiding crowds — David Taylor - Master Jeweller

10th October 2021

I visited a new spot just north of Ellis beach last Sunday. This was the beautiful end to the day there and below is what lead to it.

Sunrise at my favourite spot north of Ellis Beach, 20th January 2019.

My usual stretch of beach (shown above) was so full of people when I passed this day I decided to give it a miss. It is great to see so many people enjoy our wonderful area….I just prefer peace and quiet.

The new spot with way too much harsh light.

I made my way further up the coast towards Port Douglas and spotted a remote beach to spend the afternoon on. No views of Double Island from there but time to explore somewhere different. It was early afternoon and the light very harsh. A great time to relax and have a look around before sunset.

I soon notice that campers had been there with numerous old camp fires and stands for cooking and tarps created out of old trees.

There was also a heap of rubbish and bits and pieces all along the beach. Still have not got it all but took two large garbage bags out.

From the highway right down to the shoreline the under growth and a fair bit above has been burnt out. The burnt leaves with the regrowth give this almost Spring colour feel to the area. The smell of burnt bush is quite distinct.

Sun getting lower and the tide coming in.

Back to the shore line and rock structures catch my eye. I did not concentrate my photographs on the rocks on this day but plan to in the future.

What did catch my eye and often does at the northern beaches is the crabs that dart in and out of the rocks. They seem to react to movement, so as soon as they see you coming they go.

That said if you sit and move as little as possible the crabs soon come out again. As long as you make no large and or sudden movements they seem to not be bothered by humans.

The crabs pick away at the surface of the rocks putting things in their mouth that I cannot see. Most of the crabs on this day were a what I would describe as of “green tiger” shell appearance.

The tide was coming in as we approached sunset. Some of that cloud that looked promising to the north earlier is gone but you never know, it might come back. Time to get ready for some photos.

With the clouds light on to the north I turned the camera to the south. There were clouds but not much colour.

7 minutes later however and all the colour was to the north. I try to have 3 or 4 photos in mind that take advantage of different areas/directions. The reason for this is that I never know exactly where the best light, clouds etc will be. In the end, as it so often is at the northern beaches, the late light to the north was the prettiest.

I am looking forward to going back there to explore some more. Particularly an area that looks like it is visited by a large number of birds.

Update photos from the 15th & 16th of October 2021

I did return later that week and discovered that the birds responsible for the “white rock” are Creste d Tern and Lesser Crested Tern.

The terns are very graceful in the air and I spent a fair bit of time taking photos of them. All that time out of the corner of my eye there was something in the ocean distracting me.

I kept on seeing objects popup out of the sea but by the time I would turn the camera to them they were gone. There were quite a few and for a short period after each one ducked back under the water I could see a faint brown shape.

This image was taken very close to dark from a long way away so the quality is very poor but I can still see what was in the water. The mystery objects were turtles briefly coming up to the surface to breathe.

Extremely hard to know when and or where they will surface and react fast enough to get a good photo……I now have a new challenge right up there with photographing butterflies and dragon flies :)

The photos of the turtles were taken nearly in the dark as it seems that is when they like to start to feed. ……this last photo from the 15th was taken in the dark. The streak of light is a car making its way up the road to Port Douglas.