Tag:outback
We were still Rambling The Outback. After a very comfortable night’s sleep in the big king-sized beds at Mungo Lodge, I was up around 5.30 and out the door just after six. Along with Lisa and Amy, we jumped in with Roy and Julie and headed off to the Mungo Lookout for a sunrise. The location was average. It was recommended to us by John at reception as a good sunrise spot. It was for viewing the sunrise. But for, shooting a sunrise it left a lot to be desired. There is no foreground interest and miles and miles of endless flat plain to the sun on the horizon. In the future, when someone recommends a spot to me, I will ask, “are you a photographer” if the answer I no, I will disregard them!
Once the sun was up, we drove down to the Historic Shearing Shed just a few minutes down the road.
The woolshed
Paddy Melons
After about an hour, we headed back to mungo lodge for showers, breakfast and checkout. Breakfast was a delicious cooked buffet in the restaurant. Leaving Mungo, we came across Paddy Melons growing beside the road.
Paddy melon (Cucumis myriocarpus) and Afghan melon (Citrullus lanatus) is both prostrate annual melons germinating in spring and summer. Their growth is favoured by good moisture relations and bare or fallowed paddocks. Melons can stabilise areas prone to wind erosion and provide stock feed when food is scarce (although opinions vary greatly). Horse, sheep and cattle losses have been associated with eating the melon, but the smell of the plants generally makes them unpalatable. Dept of Agriculture
Dirt Roads
From Mungo, we were heading first to Balranald and then onto Swan Hill. Between Balranald and us lay 154kms of dirt road. According to google maps, it’s a 5-hour drive. Maybe they assume you are driving a horse and cart as we did it in just over 2 hours. Just out of Balranald, we finally got the bitumen back.
Swan Hill
We stopped off in Balranald for coffee and comfort stop and were then on our again. Finally, driving on lovely bitumen, we arrived in Swan Hill around midday. I popped into the motel and made sure all was ready for the arrival of those travelling behind us. Then headed over to the Pioneer Settlement and organised the tickets for the evening light show, settlement entry, and Pyap Paddlesteamer ride. We wandered around the settlement for a while, bumped into a few of the group who had arrived, took a paddle steamer ride and then headed back to the hotel to relax for an hour before dinner.
Dinner was at Spoons Restaurant beside the settlement. Sitting outside on the deck, the sky started to turn a glorious orange-red. Everyone started looking and then dashed off for a couple of shots with phones—fantastic sunset, and most of us there without cameras.
After a delicious dinner, we headed over to the settlement for the Heartbeat of the Murray Laser Show. Excellent show using water, laser, and sound, it recently won a prestigious multimedia award. With the closing of the show, we went back to our motel for the night; it was the end of a fabulous week We Got to know some people better and met others for the first time by the close of the week; we had all become closer, had a million memories, and about as many photographs 🙂 The following day it was packed up and headed home and back to ‘real life’. Thank you to all who took this journey with me.
Day 3 of our outback adventure
Our plans for today were Silverton and the Daydream Mine. While I slept through the sunrise, some of the group went out hunting down a good sunrise spot. Elsewhere, two of the group went out tracking down the Indian Pacific as it stopped in town. The morning skies were sunny, blue with a light breeze, but the afternoon forecast the cloud. So it was a free morning for all. Some went to Bells Milkbar, and some checked out the Palace Hotel. Others roamed the galleries. We met up for lunch with part of the crew, and then everyone met at Bells Milkbar to head out to Silverton.
Daydream Mine
The historic Daydream Mine lay between us and our destination, just out from Silverton and 20kms from Broken Hill. Established in the 1880s the mine, and the town surrounding it were once home to around 500 workers, wives, and children. It closed a few years later when the ore ran out—the NSW government heritage listed the site in 1999. Today, above ground, only the foundations of the old town and part of the smelter remain. The road in was around 10km of uphill and down dale, winding dirt roads and through two gates.
Below Ground
After the above-ground tour, we had to gear up with hard hats and lights for the underground section. Three levels underground, down narrow steps (and I do use the term loosely) cut into the rock underground. The entrance tunnel was just a tad bigger than our bodies. If I hadn’t been in the lead behind the guide, I would have turned back with everyone else behind me. But I couldn’t get past them!
It did get taller in parts (small parts) where we could stand upright. But most of the time, the tunnels were about 4ft high. It was built for short people!
Silverton
Back up top, we got our heart rate down and air intake back to normal. Then we headed 6kms down the road to the Silverton Pub. we plopped ourselves in the beer garden, downed a couple of quick drinks, and declined to move. Until tomorrow.
Mundi Mundi Plains
While the others who could all walk (because they hadn’t done the mine either through farsightedness or cowardice) headed off for the Mundi Mundi Plains lookout and the sunset. We stayed put. We were drinking and groaning. Until Bill announced, the sunset was starting to look good. Photographic OCD got us up moving. Just as far as next door where we had a clear view. an off some shots and limped, hobbled back to the pub
Lightpainting
After dinner at the pub the entire group relocated to across the road for some more light painting…no steel wool as Bill was reluctant to start a fire and burn the town down…. but we had fun with LEDs
At the end of the night we took a careful drive back into BH, dodging a few roo’s, rabbits and goats making it safely to our motel. The next morning was to be an early start as we had to be on the road by 7.30am and heading to Mungo……
Coming Up Next Day: Mungo NP and Great Walls of China
Tuesday morning, as pre-arranged the night before, everyone was up in the dark, out the door by 6 am and heading down to the Mildura Wharf for sunrise.
Sunrise On The River
The river was still and quiet, save for the morning bird calls and the odd early morning jogger going past. We were set up on a lovely wooden walkway that gave a good view down (up?) the river to the bridge over the Murray. But, even at that hour, there was a constant stream of traffic across the bridge.
By 6.45 am, the sun was coming up, more joggers and walkers were going past, and traffic was picking up… the river and the houseboats all remained quiet, though.
Back On The Road
Once the sun was up, we headed back to the motel for breakfast and showers, then booked out and headed to Broken Hill, 296kms up the Silver City Highway. The road is well-maintained bitumen but long, with the occasional bend to keep you on your toes. Between Mildura and Broken Hill, reception drops off quickly once out of Mildura, and you don’t get it back till about 20kms out of BH. There is only one little general store between Mildura and BH and three unattended rest stops. Apart from that, it’s just you and the goats..lots and lots of wild goats beside the road and the emus.
Broken Hill
We made it to BH by around 1 pm – where the group met up again at the Demo Club. The club began life as the Barrier Democratic Social Club, a working man’s club similar to the RSLs, but it has evolved into a curious cross between a pub and an RSL. There are no half-full wine glasses here.. every glass was a millimetre from the top and half the price of the victorian pubs. We booked into our rooms at the motel from the demo club, unpacked, and took a brief rest before heading off again. This time we were off to the Line Of The Load, a miner’s memorial overlooking BH. It has the name and cause of death of every miner who has worked the mine in BH… and there was a lot. No such thing as OH & S a hundred years ago.
Sculptures In the Desert
From the memorial, we headed just outside Broken Hill to Sculptures in the Desert – 12 sandstone sculptures on a hilltop. With Bill and Deanne Holmer from Melbourne Light Painting, we would shoot the sunset and then do a little bit of light painting before the ranger kicked us out at 7 pm to lock the gates.
Right on clockwork, the Ranger turned up at 7 pm and dispersed the party…then it was back to BH for dinner at Mario’s Palace Hotel…made famous from the movie Priscilla Queen Of The Desert.
Last week, a trip that was a year in the planning finally rolled around. Our first day was from St Arnaud to Mildura. After that, we had one week rambling around outback NSW. We took in Broken Hill, Silverton and Lake Mungo, and all the little towns between.
Our motley crew
My travelling companions were fellow photographers from the Victorian Photographers Collective plus their spouses. Thirteen of us left Melbourne on Sunday and met up with two more in Broken Hill and Mungo. Sixteen photographers in total, everyone got on great and looked out for each other. We laughed, groaned at the walking and had a ball. We covered around 2000 km, and a fair amount of that was dirt roads. However, I think I am cured of dirt roads for the next year!
St Arnaud
Our first overnight stop was at St Arnaud. Solely based on it was the closest proximity to Rapunyup that had reasonable accommodation. It’s also where another silo was in the progress of being painted. So we stayed in a very nice budget motel in St Arnaud and headed off on the 40 min journey to Rapanyup next morning. The organisers of the silo art trail boast about the extra tourists the silos are bringing to the region, but accommodation and cafes are thin on the ground (if not invisible), and everyone just stops, shoots off a few pics and travels on. So the towns still have a ‘lost and neglected’ feel to them. Shops are boarded up and empty. No one was on the street.
Rupanyup
Monday morning, we woke to glorious sunny blue skies… warm enough for t-shirts too!. We left St Arnaud after breakfast and headed to Rapanyup. The silos are smaller than the huge concrete ones painted already—the artist Julia Kolchkova from Russia. Julia started about a week ago. At the rate, she is going; they will be finished in the next week or so. Behind the silo’s is a disused Railway Station – apparently, it has been sold, but I don’t its purpose be. It’s probably too much to hope that it will be a cafe and gift shop or B & B.
Sheep Hills
The next stop on our trip heading North West was Sheep Hills, just 42kms down the road. These were much taller than the Rupanyup Silo’s and were painted by Matt Adnate. Again, an incredibly realistic Aboriginal face gazed down on us, the detail on them is amazing. The chap in the red shirt saw us all pull in and checked it out too. He hadn’t heard of them. But he gives you an idea of the size of the silos.
Brim
After stopping off in Warrackanabeal for lunch and a wander around, we headed towards Brim. The Brim silos were the first to be painted, and their popularity led to the others. The Brim Silos stand beside the Henty Hwy and are the work of Guido Van Helton. They feature four locals from the area. Driving into town, you can see them from miles out. They dominate the skyline as you drive in.
Patchewollock
The next stop was Patchewollock, 87kms up the road. It was the longest gap between painted silo’s, as the two more scheduled to be added by the end of the year, are in Rosebery and Lascelles. They will be between Brim and Patchewollock. There is no cellular reception in town, or the surrounding area so don’t rely on your phone as a GPS. You’re going to need paper maps to direct you to the next town. There was also no petrol or food that we saw in Patchewollock. So fill up both the car and yourself in Warracknabeal. Alongside the silo look for the old Patchewollock Station. Old machinery and carts gracefully rusting into the red Mallee earth are dotted around the station.
Red Cliffs, Mildura
From Patchewollock, relying on paper maps we headed first to Walepeup, then Ouyen and finally Mildura. Our overnight destination for the day. Just before Mildura, we stopped off at Red Cliff’s lookout. And drove around in circles for a while with everyone’s GPS telling them different things. We eventually found the lookout. damaged and fenced off, but with a fence low enough to be overcome 😉
Unfortunately, there was a glitch with our booking for the night, and there was no room at the inn. The motel owner found us alternate accom quickly, and we settled in down the road at Cottonmouth Motel. Lovely hosts, eager to help us and settle us in after the mix-up. The changing of motels and getting organised blew our plans for sunset out of the water, though. so we settled on a nice dinner at the local RSL
Crystal Ball photography has become extremely popular, but how to do crystal ball photography or where to start?. Due to the shape of the ball, it’s refractive – meaning anything viewed through it is reversed, and it gives you a fish eye effect without a fish eye lens.
Crystal balls come in several sizes from 40mm to 110mm and are readily and cheaply available on eBay (though I have seen a 200mm!) While they are referred to as crystal balls, most are actually glass. The ball in these images is a glass 80mm. While the bigger sizes are easier to photograph and fill more of the scene, their weight is considerable. I have a 40mm on the way… it will be much lighter, but the trade-off is what I can shoot. I’ve also dropped my 100mm or had it roll off a surface a couple of times, so it now has a couple of tiny dings in it, so I also have a 110mm on the way too.
Photographing the Ball
To have your crystal ball stand out from the background, you need a wide aperture – F4 or lower. Stand back from it and zoom in to get the soft, blurred out background. The image above was shot at F4, 105mm, and about 4 feet away. Duck down, so you are looking straight onto it or lower. Don’t shoot from above, as you will only get what it’s sitting on. Instead, focus on the main point of interest in the ball and shoot your image. Out of direct sunlight is best to avoid reflection (see the top right where the sun hit it on the ball above).
Positioning the Ball
To place the ball, you can either put it on a pole, a flat surface, in a shot glass, or water. (I’m going to try a golf tee next!). Location wise you need something interesting behind it. Place the ball and move your feet until you have a pleasing composition. It all depends on the angle. Keep a lint-free cloth handy to clean it between shots, or wear cotton gloves to keep the fingerprints off. Then shoot and have fun.
Rightside Up or Upside Down?
Because of the refractive aspect, your images are always upside down when shot… but you can flip them right side up using your editing program. For example, to get the shot of the wetlands below, we wedged the ball into the fork of a tree…. and then I flipped the image in Photoshop so it was right side up.
Floating?
I wanted to get a shot that looked like the ball was floating/hovering in the air. So I placed it on a post, then in Photoshop, I removed the post. To do this, you can either go around the pole with the polygon lasso or use the elliptical marquee tool. It’s a bit fiddly using the elliptical tool, but I found it worked better as it was round like the ball. The polygon tool, however, is great for objects with irregular edges.
The first step is to drag the elliptical tool over your ball to fit. This may take a couple of goes till you get the size right. The marching ants around the ball mean that it only affects the ball whatever you do.
However, we need to invert the selection so the area outside the ball is selected and the ball is protected. The keyboard shortcut on a PC is ‘Ctrl + Shift + I’ or on a Mac its Cmd + Shift + I
Now you have the marching ants around the edge of the image and the ball. The ‘active’ area is now everything except the ball, so using your clone tool, you can now safely clone out the post.
Now all you need to do is ‘Ctrl + D’ on a PC or Cmd + D on a Mac to deselect the selection and close the marching ants and make final adjustments or crop to your liking.
A word of warning
These balls can be dangerous in the sun! They concentrate the sun’s rays into a strong, direct beam of heat and light… I had seen a tripod begin smoking after just a few minutes when a ball was placed on one… and when I drove around all day with my 80mm crystal ball sitting in the console between the front seats, it melted the plastic underneath!. So always keep your ball in a cloth bag when not in use, never leave it in the sun unattended, and if you are shooting it in dry grass… work quickly!
The Wimmera Silo Art Trail is planned to be 200km long and lies within the Wimmera Mallee Region. The Wimmera is a large, flat region in the North West of Victoria, regarded as Victoria’s agricultural heart. A significant proportion of the world’s wheat and barley is produced in the Wimmera. The wheat silos dominate the landscape of every town, small and large.
Horsham Overnight
We drove up from Melbourne the day after Boxing Day, staying overnight in Horsham near the start of the Wimmera Silo Art Trail. The weather in Melbourne had been somewhat erratic, with a scorching hot Christmas day and a mild and wet Boxing Day. Driving up, we had rain on and off all day, but the temps were still pleasant. Leaden grey skies are not my favourite photographic background, though, and we had our fingers crossed we would get blue skies the further north we drove.
Grey Skies
We woke to more grey skies, and it rained the following day. The weather forecast was rain and high winds. Loading up the car in the rain as we booked out, it looked like we would have a wasted trip. I wanted fields of yellow grass and blue skies! Leaving Horsham, we passed through Dooen and Jung and stopped briefly to shoot the silos. Our goal was to shoot as many silos as possible.
Just after leaving Dooen, the heavens opened. We were photographing train tracks and silos in the rain, attracting confused looks from cars driving past.
From Dooen, we drove to Jung, a tiny town with a population of 246 and just 18 km northeast of Horsham. The name came from the Parish of Jung Jung, derived from an Aboriginal expression of uncertain meaning but ingloriously recorded as meaning a big mess in some places.
Murtoa
While still a small town, it was much bigger than tiny Jung and boasted a population of 991 in the 2011 Census. Murtoa comes from a local Aboriginal word meaning “home of the lizard”. The silos at Murtoa can hold 400,000 tonnes of grain and is Australia’s largest inland receival centre. Before long, we were getting occasional breaks in the cloud. Then, finally, we were getting some sun and patchy blue skies!
Rapunyup
Next stop, we were heading to Rapunyup. The name is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘branch hanging over the water. With a population of 549, we weren’t expecting a metropolis. But Rapunyup, like the towns before it, was deserted. I beg to differ on the “town with a pulse”. We started to feel like we were heading the wrong way. Had everyone left town for the city? Had there been a warning of an approaching zombie apocalypse?
Leaving Rapunyup behind, we headed to Minyup. While Minyip has no painted silo and isn’t part of the Wimmera Silo Art Trail, it’s a town you must go past to get to Sheep Hills. With a population of 667, Minyip’s claim to fame is the town where they shot the Flying Doctors TV series, with the senior citizens centre becoming ‘coopers crossing flying doctors base’. ‘Minyip’ means ‘ashes’ in the language of the local Aborigines.
We left Minyip and headed for Sheep Hills with a quick stop at the Nullen Sidings. By now, we had glorious blue skies and puffy white clouds, and the temperature was climbing and sitting at around 35C.
Sheep Hills
Sheep Hills had a population of 189 in 2006, and no population was recorded in 2011. Not sure what the significance of putting a silo there is. Graincorp, the owner of all the silos, closed the Sheephills silos in 2003, so maybe that is why there is no population there anymore. The Wimmera silo art trail starts at Sheep Hills, as Rapunyup wasn’t ‘online’ yet. The Sheep Hills silos are painted by Matt Adnate, an internationally renowned Melbourne artist. Matt is well-known for the indigenous portraits on walls and canvas.
Our next stop after Sheep Hills was Warracknabeal for lunch and a stretch of the legs. The weather was a balmy 38C with blue skies. While Warracknabeal was a much larger town, it still had a closed-up look about it the day we were there. Nevertheless, we found one fish and chip shop open and enjoyed a delicious lunch.
Then we headed off again towards the next one with a quick stop at Galaquil to shoot each other on the deserted rail line. We were thanking our planning on bringing insect nets for our hats. We learnt very quickly to put them on BEFORE getting out of the car. The flies descended in their millions as soon as we got out, though; for the pics below, we sucked it up and worked quickly 😉
Brim
With a population of around 260, no pub, no school, Brim is a tiny town on the Henty Highway just north of Warracknabeal. The locals hope the tourists will come now that they have the silos. Painted by Brisbane artist Guido Van Helton, they were the first silos to be painted. The silo was initially planned to be the only one. However, such interest in them was that five more towns were added, and the Silo Art Trail was born.
Between Brim and Patchewollock, we drove into Beaulah, another silo, another abandoned railway line with a quietly decaying station. The insect net and hat went on, and we wandered around the station, giving the crystal ball a workout.
Patchewollock
We were nearing Sea Lake, our overnight destination. Our last stop before our evening destination was Patchewollock. The silo’s here were painted by Fintan Magee, and like the Brim silo, they depict a local farmer. A tiny town on the edge of the Big Desert in the Mallee, it’s reportedly to have a population of 431, but I have my doubts. Unfortunately, Patchewollock had a couple of closed stores, a park and no internet access. This was a minor disaster because we relied on our phones for navigation. It necessitated a drive back in the opposite direction for about 30 km to reconnect, get Sea Lake on Google Maps, turn around, and head back again.
Sea Lake
When we arrived at Sea Lake, the temperature was firmly settled at 40C. We were booked into the Sea Lake Motel, but they had lost power with the high winds that afternoon, so the aircon hadn’t been on long. As a result, the room was just as hot inside as out. Before leaving our room, we ensured the aircon was running well and went to the pub for dinner. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the aircon on either. I don’t think they had aircon, period. Meals were typical country fare (deep-fried and overcooked), but the beer and wine were cold and cheap.
Following dinner, we headed to Lake Tyrell. The lake was just about dry, with a few puddles too far off to reach. The wind was blowing a gale. I set the tripod up but hung onto it for dear life to stabilise it. I managed a couple of shots of the setting sun before I gave up and dived back into the car’s safety.
Dimboola
The following day was overcast again with showers. We were heading back to Melbourne via Jeparit and Dimboola. The Dimboola pink salt lake is just beautiful, and while we did stop at a few other small silo towns on the way, we were under the pump to get to the airport for my travelling photographer friend to catch her flight home. We ended up getting there with about 20 minutes to spare. Fortunately for her, her flight was delayed due to the storm that hit us as we drove down.
We covered just over 1,000 kms, driving through wind, rain, blazing temps, storms, and flies. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any snakes. If you decide to do the Silo Art Trail Rapanyup, Lascelles and Rosebery will be completed by mid-2017. Make sure you have hats, sunscreen, bug spray, insect nets for your hats, and lots of water and snack supplies in the car.
A lot of the little towns aren’t exactly open for business. So, keep an eye on the fuel gauge. Many towns don’t have a petrol station, so fill up in Horsham, Sea Lake and Dimboola. And take a map, as your phone maps won’t work in Patchewollock. (Then you’ll be in the middle of nowhere without a clue like we were).
