Dunes Archives - Peter MacDonald Photo

Murray Mouth Dunes

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 21:30:30 +0000

The end of the line for Australia longest waterway. 2,500 kilometres long, the Murray meanders down from high in the Australian Alps in New South Wales.

A photo of the Mouth it’s almost impossible without having at least of the three dredges working to keep the outlet open.

The dunes though are windswept, every-changing fine sand.

The image is one of the features in my gallery which is not far from the Murray Mouth. Open this weekend Saturday and Sunday 11am -3pm

Lake Frome Dune

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 06:31:35 +0000

Here’s further evidence of the whiteness, the brilliance of the salt on Lake Frome in South Australia’s far north, particularly when it is dry.
Pilots of aircraft flying low near the surface of the lake are likely to experience a phenomenon usually associated with the Antarctic or Arctic where the horizon becomes indistinct because of the large surface area of white.
The spectacular dunes, like the one here, are found mostly at the southern end of the lake and they provide landmarks in the salt which covers about 2,500 square kilometres.

Whiter than White

Peter MacDonald — Sun, 19 Jul 2015 08:01:38 +0000

The whiteness of the salt on Lake Frome is startling. Whiter than white as the soap suds ad goes.

I’ve been told astronauts used the salt expanse to do their white balance checks for the cameras on their space stations.
The other remarkable things is the numerous sand dunes that are trapped on the salt surface.
The desert surrounding the lake have the usual large dunes that run north to south for hundreds of kilometres.
The dunes on the lake are part of that system which was formed in the last ice age more than 10 thousand years ago.
They are significant landmarks trapped in the salt.

I am up very high on these runs so that what you see in the images cover quite a large surface area of the lake

Wind Blown

Peter MacDonald — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 07:11:14 +0000

The images I have been posting about Lake Frome in recent times have centred around a sand dune location at the edge of this giant salt lake.
It is hard to imagine the size of Lake Frome and like the work I did around Lake Eyre to the north, the images posted here are trying to illustrate that.

The winds that blows across the lake reshape these dunes back and forth almost daily.

Apart from the occasional animal that climbs the dunes or the wandering photographer, the winds erase footprints and and constantly change the beautiful shapes and ripples.
In short, it almost always looks pristine.

However the extent of this unusual formation is only truly seen from the air.
This photograph shows the fine, clean sand surrounded by the salt lake on almost all sides.

But the story doesn’t end here.
There is an equally beautiful relationship between sand and salt to be found far out on the surface of Lake Frome.