I took the photos used here on a walk I did with the family along the Point Smythe Nature Trail last week. Where the Tarwin River meets Bass Strait. It is part of the Cape Liptrap Coastal Park 160km south east of Melbourne.

After an hour of walking, the track became thick either side with sticklike trees, lone survivors in the salty earth. The path then opened up to reveal a beach mostly swallowed by the tide, overlooking Anderson Inlet and looking across to Inverloch. Silence except for tiny birds flitting in and out of the empty branches and the waves lapping at the sand.

It was a tough 7km walk for the girls but they did well. In places the vegetation was thick with coastal Teatree and Banksia and really not a lot else! They were buoyed by sightings along the way of a kangaroo and her young joey, and a huge wombat nibbling the grass along the track that let us get quite close before running away (and it ran fast!). Along the surf beach on the way back, we spotted a fox run down the sandy dunes all the way to the water’s edge before it spotted us. The beach felt so isolated, not a single footprint in the sand that day except our own.

I like the way these turned out. I originally took the photos of the branches with the intention of making backgrounds, Photoshop layers, masks and brushes. I think they could be a handy addition to my image library either way!