Tapanappa Creek Dawn

Tapanappa Creek is one of a few small creeks that flow down steeply from coastal hills of eucalypt and grass tree forest to tiny bays between rugged cliff coastlines, and a couple of long sandy beaches frequented by dolphin clans, within a relatively small region that retains the largest por­tion of remain­ing nat­ur­al veg­e­ta­tion on the Fleurieu Penin­su­la of South Australia. In other words, this is a precious rare jewel of original natural land that was never cleared by English settlers. I have been visiting and camping in this region since 1984, and it has always been a kind of ‘sacred place’ for me. It remained a conservation park until November 2021, when it was redesignated to the status of a national park. This recording was made almost one year after that redesignation. I’ve made numerous dawn recordings in this ‘sacred place’, and they are all very different. This dawn recording features Tapanappa Creek during the Spring of 2022: a small creek, with small frogs and small birds. It is atypical, in many ways, in being so ‘minimal’, compared to earlier recordings; and yet, it is also very pleasantly peaceful, for that same reason.

This recording was made with a binaural rig; so, listening with good quality headphones (preferably with a flat frequency response, and preferably open-backed) at a time when or place where extraneous noise is minimal, is highly recommended.