Serenity by the Sea

 

We are lucky to live only like a 10 minutes-drive away from the beaches of Port Phillip Bay.   I have always loved going to the beach, not to swim or sunbathe, but just to enjoy looking at the waters and leisurely walking alongside to it.  It never fails to give me that sense of calmness, and the realization that there are bigger things in life... 

 The most famous beach here is of course none other than St Kilda Beach, but once you're in the mood of exploring new places, you're bound to find somewhere new...  And so we did.  We have had this set of Go Explore! Melbourne cards, and would turn to it each time we feel the urge of going somewhere, but just don't know where to go.  With this card, we headed to a place called Black Rock Beach at Half Moon Bay, further down from St Kilda Beach and Brighton Beach.

There is a small cafe that sells coffee and fish & chippery, so that was nice to have something hot to drink and munch while we were there.  This is a view from the jetty that looks over the boathouse, bath boxes and the small cafe.

 

Coffee is my life?  Only occasionally when I feel the need for a cuppa :)

 

When we were there, the weather was not very sunny.  It was for a short while, then the clouds came so it became a bit cloudy (and started to get cold).  I remembered reading a simple photography tip that when it gets cloudy and the colours of the scenery became a bit dull, a black and white photography might work best.   I seem to believe so too, as you can play around with the exposures and contrasts to make the photos livelier, or more dramatic, although in a monotone.  These were from the "grains" mode in my Olympus PEN, no post-editing needed (great, right?).

This is one of my favourite silhouette shot.

If you're in Victoria or thinking about visiting Half Moon Bay, you can get a little bit more info about its whereabouts here.

A Cafe by the Beach

 

A while back, we visited this cafe that was located along the beach in Middle Park, called Sandbar Beach Cafe.   We have driven and walked passed by it a couple of times before.  The white architecture with large clear windows that allow you to see through the cafe right to the beach looked really nice and appealing, that we just had to give this cafe a visit.

 

And once we were in, we were not disappointed at all.  The cafe was lit with lots of natural sunlight (a reason of why a photo at this angle turned dark), and the timber interior in white and natural earth were indeed a great match for the by-the-beach concept.  I would have no problem sitting at this cafe all day long, looking out to the waters, while sipping some drinks and just relax...

We didn't spend the whole day there obviously, but I did have my glass of iced coffee and a taste of their flourless orange cake.  The best of all, visiting this cafe with my husband felt like we were on brief holiday, which was truly nice :)  Must remember to visit a cafe like this again for that vacation-feel when it's not really vacation.

Have you got a place that gives you that being-on-a-holiday feel too?

Scanning Mementos

This is a postcard that I bought at National Museum of Australia in Canberra, from our Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney road trip last year.  It’s an aluminium three-berth caravan, built in 1956.


I recently discovered a new liking for scanning objects, especially small cards.  There's something nice (and somewhat exciting I must say) about having the surface of the cards faced down directly on the scanner and then seeing how they turn out on the scanner.  I find that it is not the same as photographing them (as what I would usually do).

Here are some recent scans. Hello again, good old scanner ;)

“What goes around, comes around” : When we joined Ride-On-Dinner in 2009, they gave each of us this little card to put in between our bike rims.

My sister sent me this postcard when she was visiting Paris earlier this year.  Classic :)