Stepping back through time

Today I have crossed two things off my bucket list! I had set my heart on seeing the incredible shapes of the Cobbold Gorge and the second desire was to see the Undara lava tubes for myself. My tour guide son has taken some wonderful photographs of both places and I have seen them on different “Getaway” type programs but they both looked to be so unique that I wanted to go there myself. Now I have done it!

To begin the day we crawled out of a bed that was in the Forsayth Tourist Park at the unearthly hour of five in the morning and climbed aboard a mini bus that bounced us along unsealed roads to the Cobbold Gorge. Just walking down the new aluminum walkway was a treat – at every step the savannah scrub changed to a very different well watered riverside vegetation of strong majestic trees and smaller leafy bushes. 

 The walkway down to the little punts

The lushness of the gorge.

We only had to wait a few minutes for the earlier tour to return, two small electric powered punts pulled up and we climbed aboard.

 I thought I had made a mistake by being the last in line but no, I found myself at the very front of the second punt and I was able to attach my tiny Panasonic video camera with a “gorilla-pod” grip to the railing which allowed me to take photographs with the D90 without having to struggle with two cameras. I was in heaven! 

The Gorge was even better than I anticipated. The guide who piloted the punt was a very quiet country fellow so did not bombard us with commentary and our six fellow passengers were as quiet as I was – in fact I think I was the noisiest because of the loud click my camera makes! There was hardly any conversation or sound of exclamations at all! Today the sun was not strong so we had fairly soft light which meant that we didn’t have to fight with strong shadows and extra bright highlights. I still had to be careful not to include too much sky because it was so white with clouds that the automatic adjustments made the cliff faces too dark. Having less of that bright sky allowed a more even balance of light.

The people who show us the wonderful sights of the Savannahland are just so passionate about where they live it is infectious! The two drivers on our train (The Savannahlander) are the same, they really enjoy what they do and love showing off the features we pass and telling the stories of the different towns, their explorers and the special characters that make them the place they are.

We hear the same stories with variations – but that’s the way with story telling, the story changes a little each time it is re-told.

We were picked up from the train in Mt Surprise by a bubbly lad with a strong New Zealand accent and a Dutch name! He first took us to our accommodation at the Bedrock Tourist Park (Free standing cabins with en-suite and mini kitchen) and then out to the lava tubes.

 Our guide explaining the lava tubes and the area they cover

I was not disappointed! The sight of these huge arches of black basalt made my heart race! To imagine the phenomena that create these and the weathering that had revealed them so we could enter them is mind blowing. (well it is for me!) I had to be careful not to get left behind – I wanted not only to photograph every nook and cranny but to stand and gaze at the majesty of the place. The trees and plants that have grown in the rich soil of the decayed volcanic tubes are like a garden and to stand in the entrance of the black tunnel and gaze out at this display of greens and golds is so beautiful.

 From inside one of the tunnels looking out. (Very slow shutter speed!)

When we went into the second tunnel I was playing around with trying to get slow shutter speed photos – without a tripod this was proving really difficult! Anyway our guide enthusiastically suggested painting with light and he recommended the settings I should try. It would have worked if I had brought a tripod! But this is the best I could do with eight seconds. Jahn painted himself too – and he moved so there are three of him! Sort of!

 The bright bits are Jahn!

This time the camera is on a tiny little tripod - much better!

What a wonderful day. I shall dream of this trip!

We did so much more than this but those two I have told you are the highlights.

AJ

Beauty in the bush

Today I am sharing a few of the pictures I took while wandering around in the Blue Mountains. Sometimes it is good to stop looking at the wider vista and take note of what is close at hand. It is surprising just how many things you could miss when gazing out across the wondrous open spaces offered by such places as the Blue Mountains!

This area of the world gets both wet and cold and as a result the trees are covered with lichen, both the flat pale green variety and the spidery tangle of strands of what is affectionately called “Old Man's Whiskers” (But I have a tropical plant that has that same name and it drapes down in lush long tangles of soft strands)

f/9  1/50  55mm  ISO 640

Most of the time of our three night stop-over in the mountains the weather was dull and damp but even that gave me a different look at how the mountains are. The spectacular “wow” scenes are in the brilliant sunrises and sunsets but there was no colour for us this trip. However the misty rain gave a rather special look to the jagged tree covered mountains.

f/16  1/60  26mm  ISO640

The thousands of trees smothering the mountains exude eucalyptus oil the warm air and this is what gives the distant hills a blue look – and that is how these mountains were given this collective name “Blue Mountains”

f/10  1.60  18mm  ISO 320

One of the places we visited (we chose only to go to places we had not visited on previous occasions) was Anvil Rock. At the foot of this mighty rock – which was not anvil shaped but did have a big iron anvil set in concrete on the very top – was a fabulous weather worn stone. It was quite large so I guess it was a rock not a stone! I would have loved to have clambered around the other side for a different perspective – but the steep slope stopped me! I did not fancy slipping down the thousand of more feet if I lost my footing!

Another of the interesting places we visited was called a wind eroded cave and with such an unpretentious name, very few people visited it. But it was wonderful!

  f/7.1  1/60  30mm  ISO 320

I must have taken a dozen photos and Colin the same. Its a good job we no longer have to pay to have our photos developed! The cave is really just the face of a huge rocky outcrop that has been weathered into a concave shape so is not really a cave. The face is also carved with millions of mini “caves” of different sizes giving every angle a different look.

We have now left the Blue Mountains and are on our way home. No photos were taken during our travels today, we were too busy enjoying the drive – the GPS took us on a route we would not have chosen if we had to rely on a printed atlas! We drove over 30+km of gravel road. Our car will need a good wash when we get home!

AJ

Jenolan Caves

A wonderful warm and sunny day was the start of a full and enjoyable time for both Colin and me. I must have taken over 200 photos today both before and inside the Jenolan Caves and afterwards when we visited the Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens. I had a wonderful time taking hundreds of photographs - its a wonder I saw anything at all!
Colin also was in full photography mode with his little Kodak point and shoot - no buttons to press or wheels to turn, fully automatic - but the results of his snapping are what I am using today so neither he nor I are complaining!
Neither of us realised just how far away the Jenolan Caves were from where we were staying at Faulconbridge but we enjoyed the run through the Blue Mountains and through the Valley on the other side. The winding road to the caves was really narrow and we were pleasantly surprised that there were no other vehicles to pass us or overtake us. Somehow we knew that when we arrived there would be plenty of tourists - and we were not wrong. When we arrived there were half a dozen large tourist coaches as well as several private cars.
We joined the 11.30 Lucas tour. Each tour has a different name and is of a different degree of difficulty. Our tour was for one and a half hours and had 950 steps to climb (not all UP) so it was a grade two of difficulty!
The guide gave us plenty of information and lots of time to take photos. I did not use a flash and was truly amazed at the quality of the pictures I was getting. I was so looking forward to showing them off.Colin was taking lots of pictures too but was complaining about how dark they looked in his screen so I told him not to worry about taking any more because he might be wasting his time.
I am SO glad that he took as many as he did because I have had a major calamity. The laptop froze when I put the card reader into it and when I removed it and put the card back into the camera all the pictures had been wiped off it.
I am so relieved that I had managed to save all the other photos from previous days to the hard drive on the laptop because they were all still on the card too. I was going to keep them on the card to copy to my main computer when I returned home. Too late for that!
I also had fun with the camera in the Mount Tomah Botanical Gardens - you need plenty of time to go there and plenty of time to explore the place. We arrived at four - an hour and half from the Caves - so only had an hour to look around, The gardens are the highest botanical gardens in Australia and specialise in alpine plants. There was a colourful display of rhododendrons and proteas as well as plenty of unusual flowering plants.It has been a long and interesting day but still there was time to detour into one more lookout! The sun was going down and the colour on the cliff faces is "to die for" as they say! Evans Lookout proved to be an excellent evening lookout, lots of wonderful rugged escarpments catching the late afternoon light. I shall have to rely on Colin's shots because all of mine have gone!
There are always going to be mishaps but it doesn't make any difference if you get angry or disappointed, you cannot change things. so I will put it down to experience and take even more photos in the coming days!
AJ