I managed to sneak away late yesterday on the eve of the long weekend for both sunset and sunrise the following morning (this morning) down at Cape Schank and the Mornington Peninsula. Cape Schank is a fabulous location for landscape photography – certainly one of the best parts of the Mornington Peninsula and is an area I intend to spend more time photographing this year. The weather can be wild on this part of the coast as the point fronts the waters of Bass Strait and is exposed to the full fury of the South’s weather. The wind was howling when I arrived an hour or so before sunset yesterday; which made keeping my lenses free of salt spray quite challenging. However, conditions this morning were ideal with nary a breath of wind, a low tide and some lovely gold light. The basalt rock formations of Cape Schank have a dimensionality that is primordial in nature; which when combined with great and/or interesting light makes for an other worldly alien landscape.

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I am still sorting through and processing my ‘selects’ from my recent trip to Mungo as I get time; but I wanted to squeeze in another blog update before I leave for Tasmania. This photograph was taken just a few minutes before the one below at the Walls of China at Mungo in New South Wales. I was scurrying back and forth amongst the features trying to find just the right combination of subject and composition during the all to brief golden light. So often landscape photography is like international air travel – hours of sheer boredom followed by ten seconds of sheer terror during landing. Or in the case of photography, hours of waiting around for ten minutes of great (hopefully!) light either end of the day. That is partly what makes photography in Iceland so special – the long hours of golden light under the midnight sun. And, hopefully this experience is repeated later this year when I visit Antarctica.

I am back from my recent trip to Mungo and the Walls of China in New South Wales and it was quite a memorable trip for a number of reasons. Firstly, with all the rain and flooding that has been going on in Australia of late (in particular Victoria and Queensland) it was kind of inevitable that it affected the trip – as indeed it did. Part of the Calder Highway was underwater during the recent floods and the subsequent traffic of big trucks after the waters have receded has destroyed the road in parts – forcing more than an hour long detour around the damaged sections. This turned what should have been approximately a seven hour drive into nearly eight hours. And that was just to get to Mildura. Mungo is another hundred and forty kilometres past Mildura and a good eighty kilometres of that is rough dirt road. As it turned out I seriously underestimated how long it would take to get there. Thankfully, I wasn’t travelling alone this time and had taken my cousin along for the ride – which at least gave me someone to chat to on the long drive.

I learned the hard way from previous attempts to get into Mungo that the road is often closed during and shortly after rains. The surface is mostly a very fine red Mallee dust that when mixed with water turns into something akin to high strength cement (I am sure you could lay foundations with the stuff). This time I checked in with the parks office who assured me the road into Mungo was open; although there was some water on parts of the road and they were advising caution and a recommendation of four wheel drive vehicles (which is fine as I have a 4WD – albeit with road tyres). The road around the park was closed due to storm damage; but that was ok as I did not intend to circumnavigate the park but rather camp in one spot and photograph the lunette and Walls of China feature.

With the long delay caused by the floods detour we were already racing the setting sun to have any chance of a sunset shoot on arrival. Unfortunately I took a wrong turn shortly after Mildura; which cost us another hours delay before I realised my error (memo to BMW: Please add the Arumpo Road outside of Mildura to your Satellite Navigation DVD upgrade). Finally back on track we arrived at the entrance to the Park and the beginning of roughly eighty kilometres of dirt road. With the sun already setting it was now clear we were not going to make it in time for a sunset shoot so the plan changed and became one of at least getting there before total dark to work out where to go in the morning for the dawn shoot.

Roughly fifty kilometres into the dirt road the sun was set and twilight showed a wonderful pastel mauve glow in the sky that had me cursing the wrong turn and lost time. It was about then that we hit a large patch of water/mud/cement at around eighty kilometres an hour that quickly saw us bogged knee deep in the infamous Mallee mud. Even with the BMW 4-Wheel drive system we could do no more than roll back and forward maybe five metres – well and truly stuck in deep mud-filled tyre ruts that were all but invisible on approach under the water.

Twenty minutes of cursing and continued effort saw us slowly able to get the car sideways and extricate ourselves from the bog. I am sure a 4 wheel drive fitted with ‘real’ off road tyres would have been out quick smart – but the road slicks of my car made the job that much more difficult.

We finally arrived at camp at Mungo just as the first stars were appearing. We were able to locate the ten kilometre road into the Walls of China feature for the planned dawn shoot and sat down to a meal and some sleep. The whole trip had taken more than nine hours. By the time we crawled into our sleeping bags it was after midnight and I was totally knackered from the long drive. It was to prove worth the effort however as we were rewarded at both Dawn and the following Sunset with some gorgeous light for photography.This first photograph was one of the last exposures I made at the Walls of China and is subsequently one of my favourite images from the trip. Whilst wandering around the features I was immediately attracted to the curving line of sand leading from left to right that I have used in my composition to draw the eye into the photograph. I am always looking for leading lines in Nature as they help convey a sense of depth to a photograph that greatly enhances the viewers experience. The natural formations of the Walls of China really add a sense of drama to this photograph that I find very appealing. This photograph was taken around ten minutes after sunset. You can still see a very faint glow in the Eastern sky. The sandstone features of the Walls of China are softly illuminated by reflected light off the high cloud.

I will post some more photographs from the trip over the coming weeks as I get time to finish sorting and processing the roughly four hundred frames I took over a period of two days.

For anyone who is interested there is some interesting information about Mungo and the Walls of China and how they formed on Park New South Wales Website.

It is better than a rain dance – but I am trying again to get to the Walls of China at Mungo this weekend. The weather forecast is reasonable to good, the road is currently open and accessible, the moon almost full and the planets just about aligned. So all with all systems go for launch I am heading off for the 6-hour drive to Mildura and then onto the Walls of China late this Friday for a few days of photography.

I wont belabour the point again – but Mungo and the Walls of China is a part of Victoria I have not visited before and have wanted to photograph for some time. My last two attempts have ended in total wash-outs and wasted or aborted trips. This time I feel nervously confident it will come off. We shall soon see. See you in a few days.

It has been quite a while since my last update (my apologies); things have just been very hectic at the office with the usual pre-Christmas insanity. I really do not understand what it is about the pre-Christmas period that makes people act as if the world is coming to an end. The desire to get everything finished before Christmas for no other reason than getting it finished before Christmas makes little to no sense to me. Anyway, despite the madness I did manage to sneak away the weekend before last to the Grampians for a couple of days for some photography. The Grampians was actually ‘Plan B’ – ‘Plan A’ was Mungo and the Walls of China; which if you have been following my blog at all will know I am destined not to visit due to the God of Thunders uncanny ability to pour rain for days prior and during any potential visit – such is life. I will keep trying though.

Exiting stage left at around 11am and leaving the kids with my somewhat understanding wife I made a beeline for Halls Gap and the Grampians Saturday morning. The Grampians are around three and half hours drive from my house; which gave me plenty of time to make a sunset shoot. Even though I did not as yet know where I would be shooting and the Grampians is an awfully big place. Arriving in Halls Gap early afternoon after some fairly atrocious traffic through the city outskirts I had  a good chat with one of the Rangers about the current state of the waterfalls and weather conditions. On his advice I made for an area of the Grampians near Dunkeld called Sentinel Peak.

Sentinel Peak is a steep three and a half hour trek virtually straight up from the main road from Halls Gap to Dunkeld to the Summit which looks North East across the main peak. The views from the top are spectacular (some of the best in the Grampians) although its a tough hike up very uneven rocky ground that saw me nothing short of shattered on reaching the summit. I contribute a good portion of my weakened condition on reaching the top to the twenty plus kilograms of camera equipment I hauled to the top. Not having photographed or even walked to the top before I did not want to be caught short of the wrong lens. In the end I used my trusty 50mm F1.2L and could have left most of the rest of the kit in the car.

This photograph was shot from the summit proper looking North East as distant rain showers and sunbeams streaked through the patchy cloud. There is a lovely play of light at work here that really works for me. You cant see it in the small jpeg on screen but there are two rainbows in the distance on the right hand side of frame. The light is warm late afternoon light that is often encountered this time of year in Australia and makes for wonderful landscape photography.

The Australian bush is very difficult to photograph at the best of times. Making order out of the chaos can be extremely challenging. If you have never visited Australia or attempted to photograph the Australian bush you may have a hard time comprehending what it is I am driving at with this statement. Those of you who have will understand what I mean when I say the Grampians (although exceedingly beautiful) is very challenging photographically. In this case, I am very pleased with the result.

I ended up getting back to the car around 10:30pm after the hike back down (nearly treading on a Tiger snake in the process) and decided that after dinner and a few hours sleep I would get up at 3am and hike back up for sunrise (must have been a brain fade moment). I did trek back up for sunrise but needn’t have bothered as the best light was most definitely the prior evening with the distant rain showers.