Cam McCully has never seen its like before. Lucky for us he had his phone at the ready.
He had no idea what the meteorological phenomenon was but he knew it was spectacular.
Mr McCully, from Naracoorte, in South Australia, is a regular at the Coorong. It is a South Australian wetland down near the Great Australian Bight, where the mouth of the Murray River meets the sea.
"… There was a beautiful sunrise, so I started to take some photos.
"Then I saw this cloud on the horizon, and it was racing in towards me. The sunlight made it pink after it had been blinding white. It was quite amazing."
He estimates the original cloud passed just 30 metres above his head, and it was so low in the sky that he could have hit it with a tennis ball.
A few more clouds followed the original cloud. But the first cloud was so immense he couldn't see the the ends of it.
I've never seen anything like it in my life.
- Cam McCully
What he saw was later confirmed as a 'roll cloud' or volutus cloud, a rare type of cloud belonging to the arcus family. Roll clouds regularly occur along coast lines due to cold fronts clashing with warmer temperatures.
They are more common in northern Australia, which makes Mr McCully's sighting even more of a curious event.
"I've never seen anything like it in my life," he said.
"I spoke with Adam Stewart, who used to run the Salt Creek Roadhouse, and he's lived up there all of his life. He said that he had never seen anything like that either."
As Mr McCully was the only camper for a couple of kilometres around, if he hadn't recorded it via photos and video, the beautiful yet bizarre roll cloud simply would have disappeared, well - into thin air.
This article first appeared in the Naracoorte Herald
Amy Maynard
Born on a mountain, raised in a cave, tip offs and yarns are all that I crave.
Born on a mountain, raised in a cave, tip offs and yarns are all that I crave.
