A Creek Trickling into the Southern Ocean at Tunkalilla Beach

Tunkalilla Beach is almost six kilometres in length, incongruously embedded in a coastline of granite cliffs and rocks on the southern coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula. Seven or eight small creeks (most of them usually dry) wind down to the shore from the hills above the beach. The sound of the Southern Ocean’s waves beating upon the long, straight beach is quite vast and often almost overwhelming. Its deep roar can be heard from anywhere along the coast and also far inland. During the day, from the beach, it’s not unusual to catch sight of pods of dolphins surfing the waves together. This recording, however, was made at night, sometime between midnight and dawn. It was late winter. The high tide had peaked after midnight under a waning gibbous moon. You are sitting a little way upstream, close beside one of the small flowing creeks, listening to the sparse fresh water trickling over granite rocks on its way down to the ocean. Some distance behind you, long, slow waves relentlessly pound the pale moonlit sand.