Tag:forests
Autumn Photography in Australia is dramatically different for Australian photographers to those living in the northern hemisphere. While photographers in the Northern Hemisphere have Aspens, Japanese Maple, Poplars, Cottonwoods, Ash, Oaks, and Dogwoods at their back door – we have Eucalypt trees. Green/grey all year round. For an Australian photographer, hunting for autumn colour involves a lot more than stepping out into the nearest forest. It requires research to find ‘English’ gardens and often, a good drive in the car. Pre-covid, when air travel was still possible, it could also include a flight to another state or even timing your overseas holiday for autumn.
Autumn Locations in Victoria
However, within Victoria, we are lucky to have several fantastic gardens of deciduous trees that create a riot of colour in autumn. Except for Tieve Tara and Cloudehill, all are free to enter.
- Alfred Nicholas Gardens, Mount Dandenong
- George Tindale Memorial Garden
- Cloudehill, Dandenong Ranges
- RJ Hamer Arboretum
- Bright and Wandilgong
- Tieve Tara, Mount Macedon
- Honour Avenue, Mount Macedon
- Maroondah Reservoir Park
- Glenlyon, 20 minutes from Daylesford
- Valley of Liquidambers, Heathcote
When is the best time to shoot?
In Victoria, the leaves usually don’t turn till mid-April. We need 2-3 cold nights before they start to turn en masse. Time of day-wise, hands down, the best shooting time is during golden hour. The hour before sunrise or sunset will have warmer light, enhancing all the leaves’ reds, yellows, and orange. If it’s overcast with no light coming through, you will need to be a bit more creative with the editing process.
Lenses
While I mainly shoot autumn in a focal range of 24-70mm – pack the macro when you head out – while a macro of leaves is on the cards, it’s not just leaves that may attract your attention. Tramping through trees at Mount Macedon we came across an exoskeleton of a cicada.
Settings
I like to keep my ISO low – most of the time, I am shooting around ISO 200 – and never above 400. I find it easier to avoid noise in images to start with – rather than fix it in post. To bring the leaves out and have them pop against a blurred background, I usually shoot between F1.4 to F2.8 – only going up to F9 and above if I am shooting a pano. Shutter speed will always depend on available light – but if it’s going to be longer than I can hold, I pop the camera on the tripod.
Backlighting
Photographing the branches and leaves, backlit by the sun, will bring out the detail/veins on the leaves. Go for a Fstop of higher than F16 to get a sunburst.
Use a circular polariser
A circular polariser is an essential addition to your kit for autumn. It will pump up the colour and contrast of the leaves and the blue sky. A bonus is it will remove the shine off the leaves or ground if it’s been wet. If you decide to shoot leaves floating in water – it will also remove the glare off the water.
Orton Effect
The Orton effect is one I sparingly use – but when I do, it’s for autumn landscapes. Basically, it’s a glow added to your images in post-production. Photographer Michael Orton created it, and he used it in his film photography, layering two images on top of each other. One in focus, one brighter, slightly out of focus. When combined, this created an image that was both sharp yet blurry. While it shouldn’t be used on everything – it can make your autumn shots pop.
I have created a free action for you to download if you would like to try it. It will work on both mac and pc – download, unzip and add to photoshop. It is a zipped file, and you will need to unzip it. If you don’t have an unzip program I suggest using Winrar its easy, safe and free. When you have run the action – adjust the opacity of the layer to your liking.
White Balance
While most of us shoot with auto WB, with autumn shots, it’s better to use a slightly warmer WB – around 6000 kelvin. If you don’t want to or don’t remember to change your WB before you shoot – you can adjust it in LR or Photoshop during your editing process. Move the temperature slider to a higher kelvin number. The left (blue) will make your image cooler – to the right (yellow) will warm the image. Be careful not to overdo it – if you shoot jpeg, it’s just a tiny amount – if you shoot raw, I have used anywhere up to 7000 kelvin depending on the image.
Below is a shot of the Laburnum Steps at Breenhold Gardens, Mount Wilson. RAW, and straight out of the camera, it leaves a lot to be desired. I warmed the WB to 7000k and increased the vibrance +50 and saturation +25
Look for Subject Seperation
When you are in among the trees, look to separate your subject from the background. Early morning fog or mist is great for this – otherwise, try a low F stop – around F4 or lower to keep your main subject sharp – but a bit of blur to the background.
Contrast is good
Colour is good… great even – but look for contrasting colours to make the leaves stand out. A green shrub in a sea of yellow and orange or dark tree trunks in among the riot of leaves
Autumn is a great time to be out with a camera. It’s actually my favourite season. The days are a bit shorter – so sunrise and sunset are at a bit more civilised time, and autumn is known to turn on some amazing sunsets. The weather is still pleasant but not as hot, and we haven’t hit the cold of winter or the rain and wind of spring yet. Add natures glorious colours, and what’s not to love?
This week, along with three fellow photographer friends, we had planned to do some Fungi Hunting at Mt Macedon. So, we rugged up against the weather and headed to Sanatorium Lake at Mt Macedon. Weather-wise it was clear, with only slight showers, but it was 6C at the lake. Cold, cold, cold. That kind of damp, chilling cold that just seeps into your bones. Rugged up like Michelin people, we left the car and headed for the lake. The track was easy to follow, muddy, but not too bad.
On the hunt
We slowly walked along the path, eyes swivelling back and forth, looking for fungi and checking the sides of tree trunks and deadwood lying on the ground. When we found one, we noticed that there would be others in the immediate area. Never saw a single one by itself. We went off the path into the scrub in several areas where we spotted them. Some were just too hard to photograph either because they were inaccessible, way up a tree, or the tree was on such a slope that we needed to be mountain goats to position the tripods and shoot them.
Focus Stacking
I was shooting with the Olympus OMD EM1 Mark II, giving the new 60mm Macro its first real run, and trying out Focus Stacking for the first time on the Olympus, which worked fantastically! I just love it; it creates eight images at different focal lengths, then merges them in-camera into a single image (jpeg) that’s (theoretically) sharp front to back. Considering these were taken on a macro, which usually has a very narrow depth of field, it worked great. I can’t wait to try it on the 12-40 for landscapes. You end up with eight jpegs, 8 RAW and the blended jpeg. As I prefer to work with RAW files, I deleted the jpegs when I downloaded them to the computer and then blended the RAW files in Photoshop.
By around 1.30 pm – hungry and chilled to the bone, we headed back to the car, grabbed our picnic lunch and headed to one of the picnic tables. We quickly ate our lunch and then dived back to the warmth of the car for the trip home. We had a fabulous morning, we all got a great crop of images, but all need warmer winter gear 😉
Once a year, hubby and I make our annual pilgrimage to King Valley Camp, visit friends, take photos, cruise the wineries, and have some ‘downtime’. And with no internet at the camp, downtime is total. So I found myself driving down the road each day and pulling up to the side of the road to catch up with emails and FB. Shocking, I know.
Rain, Rain, go away
The weather forecast for the weekend was rain, but we were lucky with no rain except late at night when we were all in bed. So we could do a bit of travelling around during the day.
On Friday, we drove up to Powers Lookout. Named after the bushranger who reputedly had a camp there in the 1860s, he used the high vantage point to watch for approaching troopers. We usually just stop at the upper lookout and take a few shots.
Powers Lookout
This time, feeling a bit stupid and adventurous, I decided to try the ‘other’ northern lookout. The steps seemed ok at the start, heading downhill via steps cut into the rock, but ok. Then they got steeper, massive, single steps where really two would have been better. The stone steps kept going down, then changed to steep metal stairs, shimmy through a gap, past a big rock in the middle of the path (glad I hadn’t had lunch yet), then UP metal stairs to the northern lookout. (I should have stopped and taken photos of the track, but I was saving my energy to keep the lungs and legs working)
The northern lookout gave a different and better view, so the walk was worth it. But OMG I paid for it the next day with very sore legs. So we shot off quite a few photos, then started the trek back, with lots of stops along the way to catch our breath, admire the view.
Chrismont Winery
From Powers Lookout, we headed to lunch and then Chrismont Winery. It’s a beautiful building that won a design award and offers magnificent sweeping views of the valley from the tasting room. I may have liberated a couple of bottles of their delicious Prosecco while I was there.
That evening we played with some light painting, new toys, trying out various ideas.
We did see some rain that night, but the following day was lovely and sunny again. We enjoyed a slow start to the day and then headed up the road to Lake William Hovell. Fabulous reflections and very quiet, we had the place to ourselves, apart from a few fishermen.
We had planned to do more light painting that evening, but the rains really came down not long after dinner, and we were futilely huddled under the awning waiting for them to pass, which they really didn’t. The Olympus held up well in the rain, but I found that the wi-fi to my iPhone doesn’t work too well when I have cold, wet fingers. So mental note to self, make sure I have my wired remote in my bag!
The O’Reilly’s, were in the right place, at the right time, during a few pivotal moments in their lives and Australia’s history, including the loss of the Stinson. Setting up a dairy farm four years before the land around him was declared a National Park and then later a World Heritage-listed area ensured they had the Green Mountains virtually to themselves. In 1937 a Stinson aircraft with seven people on board disappeared en route from Brisbane to Sydney. A massive search for the plane was launched, but based on conflicting eye-witness accounts, the search area was 800kms south in the Hawkesbury region. Days later, the search was abandoned.
“The rescue of survivors of the Stinson plane crash 80 years ago was an iconic moment in Australian history, but the man behind the feat never felt he was a hero”
Damien Larkins, ABC News.
The Loss of the Stinson
Bernard O’Reilly believed he had seen the plane fly over his brother’s nearby farm. However, he was convinced it hadn’t crossed the border into NSW, so he searched on his own. Making his trail through dense rainforest and up the steep terrain of the McPherson Range, relying solely on his bushman skills, he found the wreck two days after he set off and 8.4kms from the O’Reilly property. The Stinson pilots and two passengers had died. Another survivor died going for help, leaving just two. Of the two remaining survivors, one had a broken leg. The other was severely burnt from the fire that engulfed the plane when it crashed.
The Rescue
Bernard boiled the men a billy tea and gave them food before heading back down the mountain at night. He waded through creeks and hacked his way back down the mountain through the dense rainforest. Thirteen hours later, he reached a farm where he was given a horse for the rest of the journey. Arriving back, he organised a rescue party and doctor. Then led them back to the crash site and helped bring the survivors down on stretchers. Talk about a feat of endurance!
A movie called ‘Riddle of the Stinson’ was made of the rescue starring Jack Thompson playing Bernard O’Reilly and the legend of the Stinson lives on with O’Reilly’s & The Stinson forever linked.
In the 1980s, the Australian Army removed much of the wreckage via helicopter. However, the skeletal remains of the aircraft are still there. This forms part of a hiking trail for very experienced and very fit bushwalkers.
Tree top walk
It was our last day at O’Reilly’s, so we headed off for the Tree Top Walk after breakfast. With Carole now on a walking stick instead of crutches. A series of nine suspension bridges soaring up to 30 metres off the forest floor. The walk is just across the road from reception and was the first of its kind in Australia. The boardwalk through the rainforest leads to a fig tree, the start of the bridges. It was drizzling, and the forest was shrouded in mist as we started. However, by the time we got back, the sun was shining.
We went for a massage and foot treatment at O’Reillys Lost World Day Spa in the afternoon- a fabulous treat.
Last night at O’Reilly’s
That evening, with Carole now off the crutches. We headed upstairs to the Rainforest Bar for our last happy hour and one and only sunset, followed by dinner and an early night. We were off down the mountain to Springbrook National Park and the Gold Coast the following day.
Murphys Law was running true to form as we’d had four days of misty, cloudy mornings up at O’Reilly’s. The day we left to head to Springbrook National Park, and the Natural Bridge was blue skies and bright sunshine. Waterfalls are never good in bright sunlight.
We set off back down the winding, narrow road to Canungra and then diverted to Springbrook, arriving around 11 am. The walk to the Natural Bridge is a loop. With the recommendation to do it in a clockwise direction or else you have a lot of stairs coming back up, we were still worn out (and hot) by the time we got back up, but doing it clockwise was better. There were a lot of steps going down, and I would not have liked to do all those stairs in reverse!
Natural Bridge
By the time we got to the Natural Bridge at Springbrook National Park, the sun was high in the sky, and the rock opening was being hit but loads of sun. It blew out the highlights even with five image HDR stack. We did find some interesting mushrooms growing on a log on the way back.
Fungi
Leaving the Natural Bridge, we turned left instead of right, and a few kms down the road came to the border. a quick photo stop before we turned around 🙂
Borders
We stopped for a quick lunch and then headed to the ‘Best Of All Lookout’, yep they really called it that. The walk to the lookout was an easy 350 metres through the rainforest.
Goomahlara Falls
Our last stop before we headed down to Surfers Paradise was Goomahlara Falls. It’s an easy 200m walk from the carpark that brings you to a little lookout with the waterfall off to the side, and you cant get to the bottom—crappy point of view for a photo. Heading back to the carpark, Carole left the path, and we headed through the scrub to the stream. Goomahlara Falls, which made a much nicer shot 🙂
the edge of the rocks drops off to a sheer cliff, so this was as close as we went. From here, we headed down to our apartment in Surfers for the next four nights. We had chosen one with a city view, and I was hoping to get some nice night shots and maybe a timelapse
We were still at O’Reilly’s in Lamington National Park, and with Carole on crutches today, we did a more sedate 4WD trip this morning with Matt to Moonlight Crag and then to Luke’s Farm for damper and billy tea. Matt kept an interesting and informative dialogue as we passed certain spots, including stopping for us to shoot a massive Coastal Carpet Python.
Moonlight Crag
We stopped at Moonlight Crag, but there was so much low cloud that we couldn’t see anything—we were completely socked in. The view over Lamington National Park is great when you can see it. Having no joy there, we continued to Luke’s Farm. This was lower down the mountain, so we were below the clouds. Now, the view was fabulous from here.
Matt made a fire and started boiling the billy. Morning tea was billy tea or coffee and damper with butter, delicious!
The Noisy Miners are well used to people calling in with damper, and they didn’t take long to turn up and start waiting for crumbs. With morning tea done, Matt drove us back to O’Reilly’s.
Birds of Prey Show
In the afternoon, the skies cleared, and the sun appeared. With Carole still on crutches, we headed over to the Birds of Prey show, parking as close as I could for her; she still had to hobble along a gravel path. The show was only about 30 minutes but quite good, with the bird handler very informative and full of humour.
Today, our plans were for an O’Reilly’s Segway Ride, one tick off Carole’s bucket list. We had about 40mins of training and then set off the segway. The O’Reilly’s Segway Ride is off the road. However, they usually go down dirt tracks and through a small stream; we stuck to the roads. We walked to Morans Falls, leaving the Segways in the carpark
“I realized something on the ride. I realized if I wait until I’m not scared to try new things, then I’ll never get to try them at all.”
Marie Sexton, Between Sinners and Saints
The walk to the falls was pretty and not too arduous. But we were on a tight schedule as Rob, our guide, had to be back to ferry a heap of guests up to Moonlight Crag for a wedding. Therefore our pace was much faster than we usually do at a waterfall with lots of steps.
Back up the top, it was off on the Segways again back to O’Reillys. All went well until about 10ft from the end when Carole came off the Segway. No significant damage, but the knee swelled up over the afternoon, and she was on crutches the following day. We took it quiet for the rest of the afternoon and relaxed in our room before heading down to the dining room for dinner and drinks.
Once a year, my sister and I take a week’s holiday together. No hubbies, no kids. Just sister time with our cameras. This year we chose the hinterlands of the Gold Coast, staying at O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat for four days before heading down via Springbrook National Park to Surfers Paradise for another four days. Finally, we flew out of Melbourne, arriving in Coolangatta 2 hours later… due to Qld not having daylight savings, the watches had to go back an hour, putting us at the rental desk to collect our hire car only 1.5hrs after leaving Melbourne.
“Four years after the arrival of the O’Reilly family in 1911 Lamington National Park was declared, effectively isolating the O’Reillys from the outside world. While Lamington wasn’t Queensland’s first national park it is the most significant, and was regularly referred to as ‘Queensland’s National Park”
https://oreillys.com.au/lamington-national-park/
A free upgrade saw us heading off in a lovely little Mitsubishi ASX instead of the Toyota Carolla. Not that it helped with luggage storage … we had two large suitcases and two rolling camera suitcases, and the big suitcases held more camera gear! Gone are the days of travelling light.
Canungra
The first stop was O’Reillys Vineyards, Canungra, where we enjoyed a delicious lunch before a wine tasting and bought some wines to take with us. There was apparently platypus breeding in the creek, but with the skies getting darker and a storm predicted and 34 kms of very, very winding road up the mountain ahead of us, we decided to push on. It was good that we did, as while Qld doesn’t believe it needs daylight, saying it would really help! Daylight is around 4.30 am every morning, but it’s dark by 6 pm.
Goat Track of a Road
Road crews were working on the road repairing damage from Cyclone Debbie. This made some sections narrower than they were already, and it was one lane all the way up. Not one lane each way… one lane in total! there were lots of little turnouts to pull over into, but a couple of times, we came around a blind corner with another car coming towards us…. a wine was definitely called for by the time we arrived. (we found out later the road was an old logging track they covered with bitumen!)
O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat is a village-like retreat high up the mountain in Lamington National Park, with a dining room, bar, cafe, discovery centre, church, mini-mart, gift shop, and accommodation options from self-contained through to guesthouse or camping.
Birds Galore
We had decided to stay in the mountain view rooms with a little back deck overlooking the mountains in the distance. It turned out to be an excellent choice as each morning and evening, we had such a myriad of birds in the trees around our room that we quickly bought some rice crackers at the mini-mart to attract them closer.
That night we strolled down to O’Reilly’s dining room… amazing food with massive portions…. not really overpriced for what you got, but geez.. our lamb share platter for two could have fed four; we did our best but still left half…. mind you we still made room for the pavlova even if we had to share that too 🙂
It was late May, and the photography tour to the South Island, New Zealand, that I had been waiting almost a year for finally rolled around. We flew out of Melbourne via Jetstar to Queenstown, NZ.
The flight
The flight was only around half full, so we had room to spread out. We approached Queenstown in a blanket of low clouds and rain just over three hours later. The pilots must have done 100% of the approach on instruments because we didn’t see the ground until we were only about 100 feet above it. The landing was comfortable, though, and we were through customs and biosecurity and out the door within a short time. Into rain, snow-capped mountains, and cold. Very cold.
Queenstown
We quickly found a shuttle bus that drops you off at the hotels in Queenstown, and for the princely sum of $13NZ, we were shortly deposited at the door and to the warmth of our hotel for the night. Looking at the weather, we dined in the hotel restaurant that night while the rain came down outside. The following day we were up eager to be collected by our tour host Jarrod from Jarrod Castaing Photography; we flung back the curtains to greet the day.
Funny thing about rain. When you start heading up the mountain in zero degrees and get to 700-800 feet above sea level, the rain becomes snow.
Coronet Peak
After picking up everyone, we drove up to Coronet Peak. Roads were icy, the lookout under a heavy blanket of snow. We had prepared well with our thermals, windproof pants, and feather down coats, but I should have also packed a full face balaclava. The wind off the snow was icy, pretty, but icy. Driving from Coronet Peak to Lake Tekapo, we went through the usually brown plains of Lindis Pass. They also were blanketed in snow, and it was still coming down quite heavily as we drove through it.
Church Of The Good Shepherd
Arriving safely in Lake Tekapo, we drove straight to the Church Of The Good Shepherd, which was oddly deserted. -1° Celcius and heavy snow falling go figure 😉
The plan was to do a sunset shoot at the church, but as getting one looked as likely as a heatwave, we all decided to relax in our rooms until dinner time. Fast forward to the following day, and the snow had stopped overnight, and the sky was clear. So we headed back to the church around 6 am, in the pitch dark, and set up the tripods to wait for the sun.
After standing around in the cold and the dark, the image that ended up as my favourite was the one above. Taken about 5 mins before we left as the sun came up. Leaving the church, we drove to Lake Alexandrina. Gorgeous place. totally empty of tourists, shhhh, I don’t think they know about it yet 😉
Mount Cook
From Lake Alexandrina, we headed for breakfast and then off towards Mount Cook. Passing by Lake Pukaki, we stopped in for a quick shoot. Lake Pukaki is a sparkling blue lake fed by the alpine glacier lakes. Sir Peter Jackson chose this part of the Southern Alps – the main divide stretching north-south the length of New Zealand’s South Island – as the setting for ‘Lake-town’ in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Arriving at Mount Cook, we booked into the Hermitage and got ready for the planned afternoon shoot at the Hooker Valley. I had been looking forward to this part since I first signed on to the tour. But I had drastically overestimated my ability to walk 1.5hrs each way, uphill and down dale. And about 40 mins into the walk, we turned back and left the others to finish. It was mean (but rewarding) to hear later that the others also struggled with the walk, and the light was dreadful when they got there, and no one got their postcard shots.
Hooker Valley trail
The Hooker Valley trail leads to Hooker Lake. the valley is ruggedly beautiful, and I still haven’t seen the lake in real life, but I can live with that.
Wanaka Tree
The following day, the sun was out. As it rose and hit the snow-capped peaks, they turned a glorious golden yellow. Coming from a city that never sees snow, it was a sight to behold. After breakfast, we headed off again. Our destination was Lake Wanaka and that famous tree. We were scheduled to do a sunrise and sunset there. Sunset cooperated with us, but sunrise just didn’t happen. It was drizzling as we arrived for the sunrise, and heavily by the time we sought the refuge of the van.
Leaving the lake, we headed into town for breakfast and dried our coats, hats, gloves, etc., on the grate around the fire while we ate breakfast. Following breakfast, we headed towards Milford Sound, going over the Crown Range, which had been closed to traffic a few days before due to heavy snowfalls.
Milford Sound
We passed down the Crown Range road, through Queenstown and headed towards Te Anau for lunch. Then the last 2-hour leg to our final and last night destination Milford Sound. Once we left Te Anau and got closer to Milford Sound, we lost mobile reception. The last 21 kms before the tunnel is an avalanche zone, and no stopping is allowed. like so many bridges in NZ, the tunnel is single lane – one car at a time – so we stopped to shoot some pics while we waited for our turn to enter
Envisaged by early settler Henry Homer in 1890, the tunnel was eventually started during the Great Depression in 1929. Five men armed with picks and shovels hacked through to the solid bedrock of the Homer Saddle and brought in the heavy machinery to start drilling. Years later, the tunnel was complete when the workers finally emerged into the Cleddau Valley. Unfortunately, several men had died over the years from avalanches, including one avalanche proof hut in 1945.
Sunset at Milford was beautiful. and a very accommodating Egret decided to sit in the foreground for the tourists 🙂 We were staying at Milford overnight. They really have a seller’s market, being a long way from anywhere and with limited accommodation options. Our accommodation was backpacker style, at prices dearer than our plush hotel in Queenstown!
Sunrise
As the sun came up, it lit up the snow-capped mountains. Again we were there from 6 am – and sunrise was about 8 am. This shot was taken at about 8.20 am. I wasn’t moving until I got the alpine glow on the mountains!
Back To Queenstown
After breakfast, we piled our gear back into the van to head back to Queenstown, stopping along the way at Mirror Lakes and Cascade Forest.
We arrived back in Queenstown late afternoon, picked up our hire car and headed to our hotel. Had a fabulous time. I learned lots and finally have my head around histograms lol I was left wondering a few things though New Zealand is a funny country.
- why so many single-lane bridges? didn’t they think cars or horse and carts might like to pass each other? and if it dates to horse and cart…geez a couple of hundred years later and they haven’t widened them?
- Things that we buy over the counter here in Australia you need a script for in New Zealand
- For a country with more sheep than people, why are all the woolen products so expensive?
- And possums… supposedly they are vermin to be eradicated. Yet to buy anything made from possum fur – you could have bought a mink coat!
- Petrol….$2.05 a litre!!???
As an infamous redhead said, please explain, lol
In 1930, the then Board of Works created a Redwood Forest at Warburton. This one predates the Otways Redwood Forest by about nine years.
They cleared some eucalypt trees and planted Bishop Pine, Douglas Fir, and Californian Redwoods in their place. This was done for “experimental purposes as part of the Board’s hydrology research program”. Over 1476 trees range from 20 metres to the tallest being 55 metres. I don’t know what happened to the program, but the trees are still there for unrestricted access, and the site is just magic. The site is now heritage listed on the Victorian Heritage Database, ensuring survival from logging.
The Yarra River runs along the back of the forest…
and we headed to this first, trekking through a narrow goat track and undergrowth to find the river, and then found a wide path coming back. In the forest, none of us thought to record our Indiana Jones moment 🙁
The river is lined with lush green tree ferns, water tumbled and washed over rocks. Not a sound except for running water and the birds. We were only able to get down to the river at one point, with high banks preventing access most of the length, but the spot we found was beautiful, and we spent about an hour there.
Back in the forest, we found more ‘odd’ evidence on what happens in a Redwood Forest (on a full moon?). Dotted throughout the forest were circles made from twigs and branches and, in one instance, a small shelter. There were dozens of the circles, a couple shaped like large nests, more than a bit ‘Blair Witch’ and no way would I go in there after dark 😉
Getting there:
Drive through Warburton, following the Warburton Highway until it becomes Woods Point Road. After about 7 km, take Cement Creek Road on the left. The road is unsealed and a little rough in places, but 0.7 km along, you will find a small parking area on the right along a fenceline and a small gate barrier. Walk through the gate, and there you are. Walking through the plantation will lead you down to the river, following the walking tracks each way.