great ocean road trip - 26.2.12

The day was warm but not as hell hot as the day before. We had a leisurely breakfast before grabbing our lunch to go with us out to Stevenson’s Falls.

On the way to the falls we stopped at a couple of places to capture the winding road disappearing to a vanishing point with the beautiful foliage around it. 

And to shoot a gully with the trees and the tree ferns to contrast

At this point I also popped a couple of Ginger Motion Sickness Tablets as the roads were making me feel decidedly off colour.

At the carkpark to the Falls we walked about a km into the area where we discovered a second carpark right next to the falls. Grrrrr. Esp for Maur who struggles with anything more than a 5 minutes walk, esp if its uphill. We all took turns to help carry her tripod and her shoulder camera bag. She did so well and achieved so much more than she hoped for. All of us taking turns to help her was so rewarding. To see her glow with her beaming smile was payment enough. Love that woman.

Dave had moved downstream to shoot the eddies, Pete, Jaime and I moved very carefully right next to the waterfall, for it was ever so slippery on the rocks in the river. We set up tripods on a big wet slimy rock to catch the veil of the waterfall using long exposure. I held the brollie for Jaime to set up as the mist of the waterfall was wandering our way. I was just setting up mine when I had a slip and landed fair on my bum. Straight down!!! Thank goodness it was just before Pete had the video camera up on his shoulder. Gosh I laughed. It didn’t hurt at all. I did have a rather nice wet patch on it after that lol.

With patience in setting up the camera and with the brollie protecting it from the mist in between shots I managed to capture this view.

 It was fairly warm and just where the waterfall enters the river is quite a good size pool of water. Jaime and Pete jumped in for a swim to cool off. Since I carry my stuff in my backpack I didn’t want to get the back of my shirt wet and have that moisture seep thru the bag, so I sat in up to my waist and dipped my front in. I also dunked my head a few times for good measure.

I left Pete and Jaime in the pool and wandered back to see what Dave was up to. I set up my camera behind and to the side of him and waited for the sun to disappear behind the occasional cloud. We needed no sun while shooting so we don’t have the strong contrasting conditions and to stretch the shutter out to 2 seconds to milk the water.

We waited up to 45 mins to capture our shots.

Pete shot some vision of the entire trip and he's compiled it into this short video. The waterfall segments is based on this day at these falls.

here

Pete and the rest of the crew had walked all the way back to the bus and drove it up to the second car park and waited for Dave and I. We only had to walk a very short distance compared to most ;o)

It was late afternoon by the time we finished up at Stevenson’s Falls so we made our way back to Apollo Bay. We all felt rather stuffed after the drive back ( I think it’s the windy roads making us all feel slightly off), so we had tea at the pub and a reasonably quiet night. Dave pulled in for a while to work on shots.

Bed by 10.30pm….. so early for me.

:O)