I knew it would be a great day …

I knew today (Tuesday, June 26) would be a great day.

I motored away from the smoke shrouded reminder of winter that Launceston becomes and out to the east coast for a string of product shoots for a client.

Clear blue sky foretold of the day ahead and the long shadows of the early morning skipped across the knolls of neatly mown paddocks along the midlands and through the Fingal Valley.

A gentle orange cast edged across the “sheeps back” and black Angus poked their heads through the clouds of their own making as their hot breath mixed with the cold air above the lush grass that was their constant meal.

A gazillion shots to be had today, but ironically the pressures of work and the chase for light would keep these pictures from sharing with anything, but my faded grey matter.

I will remember this trip and do it for Davo another day.

I stopped at Scamander River mouth to check the tyre pressures and in moments of ecstasy, I snapped a few waves that were mostly rideable, although they were very fast and the green rooms held some kammo sections that would be well worth the hiding.

The ocean was off its dial and steam trains feathered across the lineup of empty waves and I remembered the pleasant sting of icy salt spray in days long gone and squeals, hoots and smiles mixed into a near euphoric overload.

No time to dilly dally Davo….work calls.

Into Snellans for the shoot and that dusted it was off to Coles Bay for shoot number two.

The ocean was crazy and still no one sharing their bodies with the joy that nature had lavished upon the coast.

A few hours passed and I was headed for Buckland for my last slice of work, but I needed a feed and the horses needed water.

The ocean always tells me fish and chips, but a dogs eye was a much faster option and the light, although still smiling with me, would be smiling at me if I didn’t keep up the pace.

So a lonely curried pork sausage pie fell from its warm home into a crisp white bag and out the door I went, chewing this masterpiece on the trot.

What master chef had dreamed this exotic creation and thought that I would relish the combination of hacked pork snag, traffic light veg all cemented together with that omnipresent and glutinous Tasmanian curry sauce that seems to be mixed with everything from scallops to chicken?

You know the one….A yellowy-green void filler, embracing a vaguely ambivalent curry aroma that I’m sure is made offshore and arrives here like apple juice concentrate in forty-fours.

Anyhow, I was staring into the sun as water washed the warmth down and I became transfixed on the glare and the closeouts that foamed the shoreline.

Grab my camera and snap another quick one….nice.

From Swansea to the last slice of shoreline before I turned inland, the waves were ever better.

Rail yard lines and glorious mechanical peaks held up and trimmed by a steady offshore, remained empty and begging.

Size had grown from three to five at Scamander to four to six at Seymour and there were some bigger and very hollow sets to be had everywhere.

Some were fast and deep, while others just walled up and tubed near the pocket, but all were just pure magic.

The coast is not somewhere I am blessed to tour very often, but these were the best waves I have seen in my ten loving years on this awesome rock.

As I swung inland and followed the sweeping rock walls along the Prosser River, a calm washed over me and I hummed a kind of mild buzz from the waves that rolled in my head.

The sun was gaining momentum as it headed on its course to nigh nighs, but I still had one more shoot to complete my work for the day.

It was to be the best shoot of the day, where light was my friend and so was the setting, in a quiet and hidden pocket of sheep country.

Coin tossed and the pace relaxed, I decided on a back road journey to see what I’d never seen before.

I thanked the famers from afar, as I witnessed rust dusted sheds, original slab homes, stone buildings and farm equipment that were all the richer for remaining in situ as the dwindling light grew orange and the horizon went blue through white as my eyes scanned east to west.

I pulled into my drive in smokey town as the myriad of coloured lights of another Lonnie night came alive, inspiring reflection of the day which was gone in a blink and I began to dream of a trip which would be for me and my camera in sheep country.

What happens in sheep country……..

Dave Groves, A Digital Photographer, http://adigitalphotographer.wordpress.com/