Walking the Road in Winter

When we first came to live here on this road,twenty two years ago, there was very little traffic. You'd be lucky to see a car once in a while and walking was a real pleasure.
This week I have started walking the road again as my foot is just about back to normal and walking is good for you, we are told!
My little Nikon coolpix L1 is my constant companion on these walks as it is light and does a pretty good job for what I want to photograph mostly.
On the right as I walk out on our track, the jonquils, which were a gift from a friend some years ago now, are flowering so well with the wonderful rains we have had so far. As I turn left

towards Willunga, a little way up the road is this small clump of large eucalyptus. These were a few of the trees allowed to remain, I imagine while someone established a nursery nearby. The nursery went through the hoop years later and then the inevitable vines were planted instead.
We used to walk through all that area for many years but slowly it had a house built on it at the far end and a Trespassers sign put up and that was the shortcut to Willunga finished sadly....
We also used to walk to the sewage pond (now euphemistically called "wetlands") and see all

 different species of duck including musk duck, shoveller duck and the pretty teal ducks and at times swans as well.
Now this has been sealed off like a prison camp with a  high fence and dire warnings should you attempt to climb the ten feet high fence topped with barb wire.....
Anyway I digress. One of the trees a little further up the road
is a sugar gum (E Cladocalyx) which stands lonely and tall in the middle of another vineyard, a remnant of a line of sugar gums which seem to have been planted in the days when this was all farmland and sugar gums were sometimes coppiced for fire wood and fence posts.
As I walked along here yesterday,cars were whizzing past at the rate of knots. Of course the road is sealed now while it was just a dirt road years ago and in a wet winter like we are having, the road could be under water and you'd wonder if you'd get home without getting bogged!!

As I got closer to the little creek that runs under the road and past the lone gum, the wood ducks were busy wondering if they should move off or stay. They seem pretty used to traffic and a number have already been killed by cars not slowing down for them. They let me take a few photos of them before going off mee-owing like cats. They are nesting in the hollow of a dead gumtree and it will be disconcerting to see the ducklings come tumbling down from a great height when they are ready to leave the nest.You would think they would all be killed to drop from such a tall tree.

 In the photo on the right, amongst the tangle of vines, is a kangaroo, I only noticed him when I downloaded this!!Sometimes there is a family of six or eight kangaroos in this particular vineyard.
The original owner of the vineyard used to have it looking so trim and well cared for, but his heirs and successors seem not to have the same passion for the place and it is looking very sad these days.

On the opposite side of the road the vines have been machine pruned and then trimmed perfectly by a team of pruners.The wet weather we are having at present will put plenty of water at sub soil level and prepare the water supply for the coming possible dry summer and hopefully a great vintage of dry reds.
So I walked back along the road for home and find the light has changed and our huge sugar gum at the gate looking wonderfully photogenic once more!!