The End of Winter at Beales Reservoir

Spring has certainly arrived early with some warm and sunny weather, and the promise of more to come in the next few days. Saturdays trip took me east out to Beales Reservoir, another of the CHW catchments. Established in 1863, this is one of the smaller reservoirs in the Ballarat supply chain and on some further investigation I have realised that this is where Lal Lal Creek starts its journey from - how about that! The inlet channel comes down from Wilsons Reservoir along some great old water races that I will investigate soon. I did the full circuit of the lake, quite a lot of it underwater and a great sunset really finished things off nicely. So thats it for another winter..........

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A Grand Tour

With some great skies on offer, on Friday afternoon I headed north of Creswick, which is north of Ballarat, and took in a big loop that produced quite an amazing range of images. With only 2 days of winter left, this was winter light at its best - and how about that rainbow!!

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Magnificent Moorabool

On Thursday a late-in-the-day decision to take a run down to Moorabool Falls paid off big time! The rain was really starting to set in when I left home, always good conditions for water shooting, though I was determined to come back with something a bit different as I've been here many times in the past. Water flow is still really good, and with some recent clearing around the base of the falls you can get in quite close without the usual mad bush bashing. The spray off the base of the falls was covering the lens, so after getting a range of images, I started to head back out and noticed on the horizon through the trees that the light was starting to get that late in the day glow to it - I was getting excited as to what might develop! The whole lower falls area started to glow with the light as I hastily looked around for some compositions of the falls, literally jumping in and out of the river to get the best viewpoint. The clouds above the falls were rushing past catching the light and then to put the icing on the cake - the rainbow! Standing in the river for this view, prepared to take a drenching if I slipped, I escaped knowing that I had caught something very special. And I can't wait to go back........! Make sure you click on this for the big view!

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The Small Falls

On Wednesday afternoon I was given a tour of some of the Central Highlands Water locations, and we went behind the locked gates to discover some hidden gems....I'll be working on a project to photograph a lot of these sites in the next few months. So to start things off, here are a couple of images from the Water Wise trail at Kirk's Reservoir Park. Yes, it is man-made, and still looks good to me.....though I am a sucker for falling water! And with the temperature hitting 20 degrees, it was a great day to be out....Spring is here!

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Foxes Folly

Caught this just up the road from the previous post....no mucking around out here! Hopefully they don't do this to lone photographers wandering around......!

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Pincotts Reservoir

Somewhere totally new to visit on Tuesday - Pincotts Reservoir is only about 15km out of town, behind Kirks Reservoir and it felt like a whole new world in there. This is just a small selection of a great range of images I came home with.....as you can see, conditions were just about perfect!

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A Vertical Walk Along Slaty Creek Creswick Regional Park

On Monday I made my yearly visit out to Slaty Creek in the Creswick Regional Park. Quite good flow at the moment, this spot is usually well and truly dry by the middle of summer. I wandered along the banks and found some really nice rock formations with great colours and textures....there is so much more to explore n this park, I'm sure I'll be back again before another year goes by!

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Some South West USA Colour

These will warm your day up... a couple from the archives from May 2009.
Lower Antelope Canyon in Arizona and Coral Pink Sand Dunes just over the border in Utah.

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Black and White with a Touch of Colour

Sunday afternoon at Ballarat Botanical Gardens, and the spidery branches of the trees really caught my eye. An obvious choice for black and white, though one purposefully blurred image of the bark on the side of the gigantic sequoiadendrons worked well in colour.

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Smooth as Silk

The sunset on the other side of St Georges Lake on Saturday, after the previous posts explorations, was a great end to the day. I think these 2 speak for themselves.

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Wet and Wild

Its been a great, wet week here locally. Out to St Georges Lake Falls in Creswick on Saturday afternoon, and I continue to be surprised by the increase in water volume as I travel around the district. Its amazing to realise that I can get to this spot in less than 20 minutes from home and come back with such an amazing, diverse collection of images. And the sunset wasn't too bad, either....those to come later!

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Lal Lal Adventure

On Friday after judging the nearby Lal Lal Moorabool Photo comp (see previous post) I drove over to the Falls area, donned the rain gear, and headed off to a brand new area that I hadn't visited before. Main goal was to find the mouth of the Lal Lal Creek where it flows in Lal Lal Reservoir, and also to find the cascades neat=r the mouth that I had spotted on google maps. The rain was relentless, and by the time I captured the last image of the falls I decided to let it build up on the lens to try and convey how wet I was getting! I found the mouth of the creek, and the cascades I was looking for are now called Lower Lal Lal Falls. Whilst nowhere near the size of the main falls (110 feet) this small falls was a good 4 - 5 feet in height, and thats good enough for me! As you can see there is some fantastic granite boulders all through this area, and certainly a spot I'll be returning to soon.

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Its on again.......

On Friday I made the trip down to Lal Lal as I had been asked, for the second year, to judge the Landscape/Seascape category in their annual Photography competition. Open to the public this weekend, I urge those of you who are local to make the trip down to Lal Lal. There's a great range of images on display and they're a very friendly group. And with some great sponsorship help this year, the thankyou gifts they were handing out to the judges were awesome....see the image!
Afterwards I made a trip over to the Falls, in constant rain, and spent a couple of hours exploring some totally new areas down on the Lal Lal Creek, I'll post a few later on. The falls are noticeably fuller after my visit 2 weeks ago, so a great reason to visit this weekend. Here's a link for a few more details..

http://www.lallalmooraboolphotographicgroup.org

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Along the Yarrowee

More water to share...not just in the river, but falling as I was taking these images from Thursday excursion out to the Yarrowee River at Brown Hill, just north of the freeway in a small area known as the Ditchfield Scenic Reserve. The day turned very wet by about 3.30pm so I realised this spot would have some good potential if the river flow was good. The first one here shows the overall lay of the land, and then a couple of intimate waterscapes to show what you can do by getting in close and removing a lot of the distracting clutter around the scene.

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Cascades at Bo Peep Creek

Yes, I have been here before and will no doubt go again...and why not when you can come home with a selection like these, and only about 25 metres from the car! Bo Peep Creek runs into Lake Burrumbeet and with the recent rainfall, though not huge but certainly constant, everywhere is getting waterlogged and the creeks are looking the best they have all year. So every time I go back to an often visited spot its slightly different. What I like about this set is the great variance in light on the water. In the first one I'm facing west and the light is coming from the setting sun, whilst in the last one I'm facing east and the blue light of the clear sky makes a big difference to the reflected light.

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East and West

On Tuesday I headed out to Lake Burrumbeet to see what the fast-moving clouds would produce. Another very cold day here in Ballarat, with squally rain showers throughout the day. First stop was the  west side looking back towards Ballarat, and then I had enough time to get around to the east side as some great, subtle colours built up just on sunset, and with the surging water I came home with another great image that shows why I keep going back to this same spot.

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Out and About - The Hills

On Monday it was great to get out and put in a few miles around the district. A freezing cold day had me starting out near Clarkes Hill for the great view across to the wind farm, then via Newlyn where I pulled over for a few hill views. The 3rd image here is the gap between Kangaroo Hills, out near Blampied, and finally stopping at Green Hill where some last sunshine found a gap on the horizon to warm up these sheep. No sign of the forecast chance of snow, maybe that will come today. All taken with the big 100-400 zoom lens, and well worth clicking on these for larger look.

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