Super Sunday Scenics

On Sunday morning an early check out the window before dawn gave me hope that an early morning trip might be worthwhile....and it was calm, too! I ended up way out past Yendon with nothing much happening and then it started. A brief break in the clouds at Yendon right on sunrise gave me a nice start to what turned into a great mornings adventures. As I was heading back through Dunnstown, the clouds just east of Mt Warrenheip had me turning up a back road on the south side of the mountain, and finding a great vantage point looking out to the east I was mesmerised by a display of sun rays on the horizon. And the stone wall was almost an afterthought as I was focused on the amazing clouds. Pretty happy with that lot I made a quick trip up Mt Warrenheip where a wallaby let me get remarkably close. Coming off the mountain, a stop out the front of Kyral Castle enabled me to fly for the first time in over a week, getting behind the castle into the foggy trees. Heading for home, the fog was still hanging over Lake Wendouree where I spent some more time airborne as the conditions were perfect for one image in particular I'd had on my list for a while - the junction of the paths through the reeds. All up, not a bad morning!

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Something Special

I quite like this one from Saturday afternoons' wanderings.......

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A Unique Opportunity

Something very different in todays post. I've been given a unique opportunity here in Ballarat to document one of the most amazing locations. A metal fabrication workshop that was described by the owners son this way..."Everything is covered in a black layer of oil and is something straight out of a Dr Blake murder!"  I've got about four weeks to work on this project before the owner of almost 40 years shuts up shop for the last time, and on my first visit it was quite overwhelming to take it all in. Everywhere you looked something caught the eye...the textures, the patterns, the grime, the peeling paint...fantastic stuff! This is just a very first set of images as I try and put some order into it all. And if this sort of thing is not your cup of tea, I've thrown in a nice end to the week from St Patricks Point at Lake Wendouree.

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Borrumbeeta Falls

With the great conditions we have at the moment, I'm binging a bit on waterfalls and on Thursday evening I made a visit to a location I haven't been to for quite a while. Borrumbeeta Falls is on the Moorabool River East Branch just out of Ballan and as you can see the flow is fantastic....the best I have seen here. Some great light really added something extra to this set...and the small weir, shown in the last image, upstream of the falls was quite amazing. I managed to fill another gumboot for the second day in a row, too! Some more rain is in the forecast so I'll be looking for more in the days ahead.

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Kooroocheang Cascades

On Wednesday afternoon I had an exciting trip......a brand new waterfall that I've never visited before. As most of you know waterfalls are my favourite subject and I've been building up quite a portfolio of images within my Ballarat 42  Project (all images taken within 42km of the Ballarat City Centre.) I have a surprising amount of waterfalls within that area (there's a lot more than Lal Lal and Moorabool Falls!), though this is the first new one I've had the opportunity to photograph in two years. Located out north of Ballarat at Kooroocheang, I was told about this one over year ago, and only now with all the rain we've had, is it now flowing again. It's actually on an un-named creek and the overall height it falls has to be at least 30 - 40 feet over a distance of 80 - 100 feet. These 2 images show the top section and as you can see it's a very pretty spot, though quite overgrown in the lower sections. The changing light whilst I was there made for 2 quite different moods in the images I captured. Upstream and downstream needs further exploring...I know I'll be going back!

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Two Trees

On Tuesday morning I found myself out around Smeaton and Koorrocheang. A heavy fog had moved in after leaving a clear Ballarat, and I spent some time working "trees in the fog" compositions. This was my favourite, and though it may look a bit strange it is a single image capture. This particular tree caught my eye and after a few images of it sitting in the paddock, I realised I was under another tree towering above me. Shooting a vertical format enabled my to capture both trees in the one image.

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Yarroweeing Along

With all the excitement of the weekend behind me, on Monday things were a little more subdued. With so much water around at the moment, you don't have to travel too far to find something worth capturing, and these scenes came from a spot on the Yarrowee River north of the freeway in Brown Hill. There are some very pretty little spots along the river here, these ones just near Ditchfield Rd. 

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A Weekend of Wonders

Finally, I've put together a gallery from the weekends travels with the Diamond Valley Camera Club. 24 members came up on Friday evening, and we hit the road well before dawn on Saturday and visited a number of my favourite locations...and everywhere we went we had fantastic conditions on a very cold, wintry day. Starting at Mt Buninyong for the sunrise where we even had a snow shower after a great colourful start. From there we hit my favourite location...Waterfall Way along the Lal Lal Creek and Moorabool River West Branch. The recent rains have all the falls flowing amazingly...I haven't seen this much flow for quite a while. That took us well past midday on the Saturday...after lunch we headed south west out of Ballarat, firstly stopping at Nimons Bridge, just past Scarsdale at Newtown. We were fortunate here when the farmer who owns the land around the bridge arrived and gave us permission to go into the paddocks next to the bridge, opening up what I think are the best views of this amazing old bridge. From there we ducked down to the nearby Devil's Kitchen for what turned out to be a very nice sunset.
The plans for Sunday morning before they all headed back to Melbourne, was to visit the west side of Lake Burrumbeet for the sunrise, and once again we had fantastic conditions, initially on the way out looking over to Weatherboard Hill shrouded in low lying fog, and then down on the shoreline of the lake the sunrise put on quite a show. And even after we left the lake to head back to Ballarat, just as we made it back up to the freeway, the view looking north to the wind farm was equally as spectacular as the morning views had been.
As you can imagine everyone went home thrilled with the weekend...as was I! It was great how they all embraced the conditions and everyone was happy to keep going at all times. 

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