Victorian High Country

Just got back from a week away in the Victorian High Country. We stayed at Bright which turned out to be a fantastic base. One of my objectives with the trip was to photograph Wallace's Hut, but the access road is closed in winter and it's a 17km return walk from Fall's Creek in the snow. I'll do the walk another time when I've got the gear (snowshoes) and someone that can hike the distance through snow with me :)

Instead we found Dinner Plain Hut. Not quite as much history as Wallace's, and not as picturesque, but it was only 30m from the road and was nestled in amongst the gum trees.

Here's one of my favorite shots of it:

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 22mm, f/10, 1/400sec

We all had a cuppa in the hut and then headed up the road and found JB Hut. It's a couple of hundred metres walk from the roadside through snow but is just visible from the road. I rushed the shots of this hut and the first few that I took were over exposed and had to be chucked. This one with the show gum in the foreground is one of the more interesting shots, but the tree is out of focus on the left hand side as it exits the frame. It's not really too much of an issue, especially considering that this is at 11mm and less that a metre from the tree (main thing is that the hut is in focus).

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/5.6, 1/125sec

This is the Cathederal on Mount Buffalo. Very amazing views. It was hard work dragging the kids up the mountain as the snow was knee deep in most places, and slightly deeper in others... but the reward was worth it.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/9, 1/320sec

We visited a Emu and Alpaca farm. They had animals roaming around the carpark and some ostritches which seemed a bit unusual (they were behind a fence fortunately). The interesing photos I took here though was of this rusty old cart.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 14mm, f/10, 1/40sec

This is the waterfall on the way up to Mount Buffalo (can't find the brochure with the name of it atm). I spent a long time taking shots from many different angles and unfortunately couldn't get the shutter speed below 1/10th of a second without overexposing the water. The minimum apeture on the Tokina is 22 but most of the shots I did at 22 had weird flare which I only saw when I got back to the apartment - luckily I took lots of shots with a wide variety of settings!

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/20, 1/10sec

And another waterfall - not quite as interesting but all good practice.

Nikon D300, Tokina 11-16mm @ 11mm, f/16, 0.6sec

And some of the native fungi growing in a tree.

Nikon D300, Nikkor 18-200mm @ 80mm, f/5, 1.3sec

I was also looking for some really mature snow gums, but didn't find any. Apparently there are lots in Fall's Creek, but we didn't get there this time.