ned i solen

These were a couple of separate trips back in early April and early March. I've been crazy-busy in my day job, so the update has been a long time coming.

Kondolilla National Park is a small national park north-west of Brisbane in the sunshine coast hinterland. It's easily accessible from the highway or the back way through Samford and Mt Mee (the back way being much more beautiful, but time consuming). I went the back way.

It was an overcast day, but when you're shooting rainforest - or any Queensland bush really - that is a good thing. The Queensland sun is very harsh and if it is shining down on you then you're going to have a frustrating time trying to get an acceptably exposed shot. It restricts you to working in the golden hours, and that makes things very hard for someone with a day job!

Mt Mee was a great drive, but as is the story with many great Queensland drives, it is very rare to find a good angle that is unobstructed. It was already late in the day though, so I moved on.

There was a great atmosphere at the top of the range at Maleny. Although the Glasshouse Mountains were fully shrouded in cloud, the view to the ocean was clear, with low mist hanging below the mountains. However, again, time was on my mind and there were no good angles to be found from my quick glances at the roadside.

I got to Kondolilla late in the afternoon, and was expecting quite a long walk from what had been written on the Government's national parks page. I gathered up my gear (17-40, 70-200, tripod) and set out.

Right at the start of the trail there's a relatively small but interesting and well positioned waterfall. The track crosses a man-made bridge just after it. Waterfalls were what I was here for, so I set down and took some photos.



I've received more than one comment on this photo saying the vignetting is too much. While I do agree there's a lot of vignetting on there, I have to wonder if they're talking about the gradient of the water, which is actually mostly natural. The vignetting is fairly light in this photo in comparison to some of my other recent stuff.

The track winds through some quite dense rainforest right after the waterfall. Dense rainforest is quite difficult to capture usually - there is so much going on that it just comes out as green noise. Your best hope is to find some kind of feature you can compose around. A lot of the time this ends up being the track.



The track ascends into some airier forest with ferny undergrowth. I have to admit I love this kind of vegetation, it's such a great atmosphere. I took a whole slew of photos, but most of them fell down on composition or some other intruding elements.



Now that we're over the ridge, the track rapidly descends into the valley. It continues into some even different vegetation - a mixture of dense trees and palms. A very interesting kind of forest. About this time you start to notice the constant sound of rushing water, and seeing the waterfall behind the trees as you pass by.



The track opens into a small area with an open view of the falls, but of course, the cloud breaks and the sun shines directly onto them! Just my luck. I can't very well have a blog post about Kondolilla falls without a picture of Kondolilla falls though, so here is an unprocessed photo to simply give you an idea of what the waterfall looks like.



We pass down to the very bottom of the gorge, and cross the stream coming from the falls. Since this area was below the canopy, I stopped on the bridge to take a photo.



The track then passes back up the other side of the gorge, all though this time the vegetation is mostly dense rainforest and mostly uneventful with few good opportunities for photos. The uneven light had returned again as well. After a couple of snapshots at a creek crossing, I put the camera away and headed back to the car.



It turned out to only be around a 2 hour walk with photo stops. If you are fit, and not taking photos, you could easily finish this walk in under and hour, I think.

Mapleton Falls is a waterfall just outside of Mapleton, which is just up the road from Kondolilla. I stopped by and took some photos from the looking which hangs over the edge of a cliff, and gives decent views over the valley and a side-on view of the waterfall. It also gave me a good chance to try some of the perks of my new tripod!





A couple of weeks later I had the chance to tag along to Mt Barney Lower Portals. It had been a while since I'd been down to this area and I certainly did not remember how prominent Mt Barney or Mt Maroon were. They do have a reputation in SE QLD, but you really have to see the mountains for yourself to see why.

Unfortunately, today was not the day to climb them, though. We did a walk into one of the lower areas of Mt Barney where the creek runs down from the mountain. The combination of very strong and uneven lighting, and mostly light bush interspersed with gum trees meant there were very few opportunities for photos.





That's all for this week. I just got back from a big adventure down to Armidale, Waterfall Way, Dorrigo and Bellingen though, so there is a few reports from the trip coming up! Hopefully I will get time in the next few weeks.

This past weekend I went out on a hike at Cedar Creek in the Samford Valley north west of Brisbane with my sister (Bee) and brother in law (James). It gave me a good chance to try some of the new gear I've invested in, as well as giving me a chance to shoot some nature (it's been much too long!). It ended up being challenging in more ways than one.

I probably knew before I left that I had bit off more than I could chew, packing my 40D and 4 lenses and a tripod in my newly purchased Lowepro Vertex 200AW backpack. I had just bought the backpack and wanted to give it a try, but it weighs 3.5kg by itself. Definitely not the best choice for a hike on very uneven terrain on a humid 35c day. Luckily, the laptop compartment of the 200AW allowed me to fit a camelback bladder, so I had no shortage of water.

Cedar Creek is a popular place to go and swim for nearby residents. A sealed road leads to the bottom of the ascent, and there is parking on either side of the road (unmarked, just park in the gravel). We were headed to the end of the ascent up the creek, to a large waterfall. Most of the swimming is done at the bottom of the mountain where the road ends, but further up you barely see anyone. At the very end, there is a 40-50m high three-tier waterfall. It does not seem to be well known -- I could not find a single picture on Google Images, Flickr or DeviantArt with the waterfall in it (to avoid confusion, there's two "Cedar Creek"s in the vicinity of Brisbane, the other, the Mt Tamborine one, is quite well known).

The hike itself is entirely unmarked and simply follows the creek. Good footwear and a basic level of fitness would help (although I had neither!). You need to climb fairly high rock ledges, do some scrambling, and jump over the creek several times. Do not go in or after the rain -- since a large part of the walk is on bald rock, the entire hike becomes very slippery and dangerous (we made this mistake ourselves once and had to turn back).

We started at 8.30 and kept a steady pace. We took a couple of breaks on the way up, but didn't take many photos. Lesson 1 about the 200AW: your camera will not be easily accessible. I was already justifying it to myself that the purpose of this trip was to try a difficult hike with the bag full - not to take photos. Right?


Bee standing next to the the third tier of the final Cedar Creek waterfall (Tokina 12-24).

We reached the top at around 10.15, and it was around this time that I realized it was the middle of an Australian summer day, with harsh uneven sunlight casting dark shadows. Add to this that the only possible vantage point of the waterfall is directly below it. I had not planned this trip very well! Despite the lighting conditions and positioning, I got a few acceptable photos. I'm happy about that, at least, since it does not seem to be a commonly photographed location.


Standing on the rocks next to the waterfall (Tokina 12-24).

As we were leaving, we got up on top of the rocks and found the clearest view we could find of the waterfall. Unfortunately, it was still blocked by a couple of trees. If you look closely, though, you can see all three tiers of the waterfall and the cascade down into the pool below:


The whole scene at the end of the hike (Tokina 12-24).

We started hiking back down, and it was fine going to start with. We passed by a calm cascade under the canopy, and I couldn't resist the chance to finally have a go at some more even lighting. Unfortunately the harsh sun was still hitting the bush behind, resulting in a slightly overwhelming and busy image. The composition also leaves something to be desired:


A cascade about half way up the Cedar Creek ascent (Tamron 17-50, Vanguard Alta 264AT+SBH250, ND4+ND8).

Just past this point I began to feel the heat and the weight of the bag, and my unfitness began taking it's toll. By the end, I was completely exhausted. It didn't matter what I was wearing, it was time to swim.



Feeling dehydrated and sick by the end, I was happy to be done. We headed back to Keperra at 12.30 and got some lunch. The heat, the weight of the backpack, and the lack of fitness were not a good combination in the end. I think it's time to invest in a slingshot bag and go jogging!