Ockert le Roux Photography

01/06/2026

The Pilbara meets the Indian Ocean.

30/05/2026

Just when you thought the Tartwaup Fault had gone quiet, a magnitude 3.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Beachport in the early hours of this morning.

The epicentre was recorded at a depth of about 10 km beneath the seabed, approximately 61 km northwest of Mount Gambier. The tremor was too light to be widely felt, but it serves as a reminder that this ancient fault line is not entirely silent.

That was not always the case.

The largest known earthquake associated with the Tartwaup Fault was the Beachport–Kingston earthquake of 10 May 1897, estimated at about magnitude 6.5. Because earthquake magnitude is measured on a logarithmic scale, that event released roughly 178,000 times more energy than this morning’s magnitude 3.0 tremor.

The BIG one struck at about 2:25 pm local time, causing serious damage around Beachport, Robe and Kingston. It was also strongly felt in Mount Gambier, where banks, hotels, churches and other buildings were damaged.

The last major shake in the region occurred on 6 August 1948, with a recorded magnitude of about 5.5–5.6. Contemporary reports said it cracked buildings, rattled tall buildings in Adelaide, cracked the Beachport Post Office wall, and was felt in Mount Gambier for several seconds.

The 1897 event is generally regarded as South Australia’s largest recorded earthquake, and the third largest in Australia’s recorded history.

No doubt, even larger seismic events may have occurred during the region’s active volcanic period, some 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

28/05/2026

26/05/2026

A beautiful still evening at the lake tonight as we begin to farewell autumn.

24/05/2026

Another view of the ANSETT booking office on the corner of Commercial Street East and Penola Road with St Paul's church in the background. - 1958.

22/05/2026

Back in the day, travelling from Mount Gambier to Adelaide offered a couple of memorable choices. You could board the Bluebird railcar service, or take the reliable Ansett Pioneer Coach Tours by road.

Perhaps you remember the old clipper bus departing daily from opposite the Ansett premises in Commercial Street — a familiar sight for many who travelled to and from “the Mount” in those days.

20/05/2026

Celebrating the second anniversary of the brightest southern light display since 1989. (11 May 2024)

16/05/2026

The price of progress?

We are not only losing heritage — we are watching our history being rewritten, one line at a time, before our eyes.

Whether it is century-old trees in North Adelaide removed in the name of sport, valuable agricultural topsoil stripped for rare earth mining, aquifers placed at risk through gas extraction by fracking, or ever-increasing taxes reaching further into people’s hard-earned lifetime savings, the playbook is remarkably similar from local, state to federal government.

Consultation is either tokenistic, ignored, or blocked altogether — and the frequency of these decisions appears to be increasing at an alarming rate.

You should be concerned.

13/05/2026

A major piece of Mount Gambier’s timber industry future arrived in the city this afternoon.

Two heavy transport trucks brought key boiler components for OneFortyOne’s Jubilee Sawmill into Mount Gambier, following fabrication in Thailand as part of the company’s $88 million Jubilee Boiler and Co-Generation Project.

The new biomass boiler and steam turbine will help transform Jubilee into a renewable-energy-powered manufacturing site, using sawmill residues and waste wood fibre to generate steam and electricity onsite.

At the heart of the project is a 44MW biomass-fired boiler and a 5MWe steam turbine generator, expected to produce around 43,000MWh of electricity each year — enough to power the Jubilee Sawmill, with potential surplus returned to the grid.

It is a significant investment not only in cleaner energy, but in the long-term future of timber manufacturing in Mount Gambier and the wider Green Triangle forestry sector. A remarkable sight on the road today.