I'm heading to Adelaide to visit family. It is an oft driven route but the landscape changes with the seasons.
Mount Muirhead - the high point at the start of my journey - is the geographical blimp overseeing the Millicent flats.
It is the seasonal weather vane as it turns green with the rain break welcoming the coming winter.
Dark chocolate brown ploughed earth has been turned and crops are being sown. Tractors, air-seeders and superspreaders are busy beetles, moving across paddocks.
The paddocks for grazing are showing the first green.
The dry summer in the South East was very challenging with regard to feed for stock. Cows feeding young calves had been doing it tough.
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The only cattle I see on this trip are black - a fact that was unknown in this agricultural landscape when I was a child. Now, they are all pervasive.
Apparently, it doesn't matter what the breeding of cattle is so long as at least a quarter of the DNA is Angus!
I remain a Hereford and Shorthorn farm girl.
Earlier in the season, there was a blue haze in the distance. The remnant smoke from the burning of crop stubbles was a symbol of the autumnal season.
Power poles march across paddocks in formation.
Bottles and cans on the roadside glint in the afternoon sunshine. So many discarded items pains the inveterate collector in me.
Ironically, Radio National is broadcasting a program about our overuse of plastics and the impact on the environment. The world has used more plastic in the 21 years of this century than it has ever used previously!
This Coorong route has a harsh beauty of low trees, sand dunes and lagoons. Pelicans fly overhead in squadrons. The wetlands provide habitat for many local species as well as for migratory wading birds.
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It is always interesting to see the water level of the lagoons and how far out the water may have receded. I note the high land points and wonder whether the water is so shallow that foxes could get out to these refuges.
The Coorong gives way to the Adelaide Hills and yet again, I bemoan the increasing spread of suburbia near the Mount Barker area.
The freeway funnels all of us travellers toward the city. The volume of traffic intensifies.
I turn the volume of the music down in order to concentrate. My city driving skills are rusty.
