Tower Hill

Today was mostly cloudy and not very conducive to scenic photography. It was supposed to start clearing off around noon, but it was still 95% cloud cover by then. I went to the Tower Hill state park to see if I could get a little bit more wildlife. The park is located in an ancient volcanic crater and has several small lakes inside. It is supposed to be a good place to see the Emu, a large flightless bird. I did see several there and got footage of individuals, pairs and a small flock. I also saw one Koala Bear there, but it was not possible to film it as it was obscured high up a tree and the background was bright white cloudy sky.


A small group of Emus. They are a little smaller than an Ostrich. The females leave as soon as they have laid their eggs and the male incubates them and raises the chicks.


This is one of the little crater lakes at Tower Hill.

The Grampians

I spent the day in The Grampians National Park. It is a mountainous park, at least by Australian standards. Australia is relatively flat so any hump gets called a mountain. I visited several of the park’s signature attractions including Mackenzie Falls, The Balconies, Venus Baths and the Fyans Creek trail. A highlight of the day for me was filming Kangaroos at Fyans Creek. I saw a total of about 20. Some were feeding, some were lounging around in the grass, a couple of mothers had baby Joeys in their pouches. This is my third time to Australia, but the first time I’ve seen wild Kangaroos (except road kill). In all honesty, I have to admit that the first time I was diving and t he second time I was just in Sydney which isn’t know for having much of a population of wild Kangaroos (except on gold courses, but I don’t play golf). I got some fairly good footage today, so I now have the two iconic Australian animals, Koalas and Kangaroos.


These pools are called the “Venus Baths”. I didn’t see any goddesses or nymphs.


This is Mackenzie Falls.


On the way back up from a strenuous climb down to Mackenzie falls, you encounter this sign where they are doing some maintenance on the trail. It looks like something they would have for highway construction, not hiking trail work. I had to laugh because everyone who passes this is huffing and puffing and I guarantee they are all prepared to stop.


This rock formation is called “The Balconies” You used to be able to climb out on the tip of the lower balcony, but they have blocked it off. I suppose too many people were falling off while attempting a selfie.


When standing, this guy was about as tall as me.


I’m wondering how the Kangaroos know when they have traveled the 64 kilometers. I didn’t see any on the road in either direction so I can only assume that they don’t read too well.

Princess Margaret Rose Cave

Today was forecast to be rainy, and it was. Following my pattern of using rainy days to shoot where it doesn’t matter what the weather is, I decided on the Princess Margaret Rose Cave in Lower Glenelg National Park. It actually stopped raining when I got a sufficient distance from Portland (makes sense to me). It wasn’t raining in the cave at all. After the cave, I did a fairly long drive to The Grampians National Park. It was clearing off as I arrived late in the afternoon, and tomorrow is supposed to be nice.


The Princess Margaret Rose Cave has some spectacularly detailed formations.


It has some of the longest Stalactites I’ve see on this trip.


There’s lots of interesting flowstone formations too.


Here’s a “Chandelier” of tiny Stalactites called straws. They are hollow and form from the inside out.

Portland (Australia)

Well, I’m spending the night in Portland. No, I haven’t found a way to teleport myself back to Oregon. I’m in Portland, Victoria, Australia. This is the oldest city in Victoria, first settled in 1835 which pre-dates Portland Oregon’s incorporation by 16 years. I drove up here from Port Campbell along the Great Ocean Road. It was a cloudy day with only a few sun breaks, so I didn’t do too much shooting. I did do some scouting of locations that I will shoot on the way back down when the weather will, hopefully, be more photogenic. One positive note is that I’ve found some places that I can do my coastal aerials that aren’t packed with Chinese Tour Buses. There are actually more Sea Stacks up in the area above Port Campbell than there are at the 12 Apostles, but they aren’t quite as tall. That just means that I’ll have to fly a little lower for the same effect.


This is called the Arch.


This is London Bridge. It used to be two arches, but a few years ago the left arch connecting to the mainland collapsed.


This is called The Grotto.


As I mentioned, there were clouds today.


These strange flowers are almost black with bright lime green centers.


Welcome to Portland. You can see overcast sky in the background. At least they got that right.

Great Ocean Road

I arrived in Melbourne late last night. It was 1:00 AM by the time I got my rental car and arrived at my hotel. It feels strange to go from a fairly large vehicle like the motorhome I was used to driving and get into a little compact car. It’s very responsive compared to the motorhome. I have to be careful when I use the brakes because they don’t require nearly as much physical effort as the motorhome did.

This morning, I started on my trip across the Great Ocean Road that traverses the Southeastern coast of Australia. MY goal for the day was a section of shear ocean cliffs with rocky “stacks” just offshore called the 12 Apostles. I was hoping to fly there, but that will be clearly impossible for two reasons. The first reason is that there is a small airport there that does scenic helicopter flights. It is not legal to fly near an airport, so that’s out. Even if I wished to fudge on that rule, the second reason it won’t work is that its crawling with tourists. There were hundreds of Chinese tourists in big tour groups flooding the place. I counted 16 tour buses there. I’m hopeful that I can find other similar dramatic coastal features that are not on the tourist route.

I did manage a little bit of wildlife shooting today. On my way out to see a lighthouse at Cape Otway, I saw four Koalas. Two adults and a mother with a baby. That was a nice surprise. I was hoping to find Koalas sometime while I’m here and figured that might be my most difficult goal. It’s nice to tick that one off the list the first day. I saw lots of sighs for Kangaroo Crossings, but so far, no Roos.


A view of the coast near the start of the Great Ocean Road.


The lighthouse at Split Point.


A “Stack” formation near Split Point.


My first wild Koalas. This is a still frame from a 4K video scene.


This guy was about 4 trees over from the first pair I saw.


This is the 12 Apostles. To be perfectly honest, there aren’t really 12 of them, but I guess it sounds better.


These two Stacks are in the opposite direction. They are called Gog and Magog.


This is a panorama of the “Razorback” near Loch Ard Gorge, the site of a tragic 19th century shipwreck.


Another view of The Razorback.


An arch near Loch Ard Gorge in the late afternoon.


The 12 Apostles just before sunset.


Gog and Magog catching the last pastel rays of sun.

Reflections

This will be my last report from New Zealand. Today is my last day of travel in the Land of the Long White Cloud. Tomorrow I will turn in my little home on wheels and fly to Australia for something completely different. It’s a rainy day, I expected this. I’m using the time to get some of my packing done and to do a little reflecting on my two months in New Zealand. Did I enjoy it? Absolutely! Did it meet my expectations? In most cases, it far exceeded my expectations. I expected scenic countryside, but I didn’t expect it to be everywhere I looked. You can’t drive around a bend without seeing something interesting. I expected it to be uncrowded. I didn’t expect to have whole campgrounds to myself or drive for a hours through beautiful countryside without seeing another soul. Of course, it’s more crowded in the summer, but I figured there would be more people even in late winter and early spring. The North Island was more crowded, but even there I was surprised to be able to completely evade other people. I rarely had to wait for people to get out of the foreground of a scene that I was trying to shoot. Even though it was the “off season”, the weather was really quite nice. Sure, I had some rainy days here and there, but not as many as I expected. And I did get a lot of nice rainbows. Many of the locations on the South Island are more impressive than the North. I’m glad that I decided to do the North first or it might have been a little bit of a letdown. By doing it first, I could appreciate everything I was seeing without comparing it to anything in the South. It probably also helped me with the weather by starting in the North because I was able to follow Spring on its Southward path. If you like beautiful scenic countryside, New Zealand is definitely a place you should visit.



I wanted to finish this with something typically Kiwi. This is the label of New Zealand’s national soft drink. Actually they call soft drinks “fizzy drinks”, isn’t that just perfect! L&P is named for it’s two main ingredients, Lemon and Spring water from Paeroa (a town on the North Island SE of Auckland). It’s been around for a long while, and is quite good. I like it better than 7-Up or Sprite. Technically, the company is owned now by the Coca Cola company, But I haven’t seen it anywhere else but here. I absolutely love their slogan: “World Famous in New Zealand”! It’s just one of many things I’ve discovered here on my trip that is world famous here in New Zealand, but a secret from the rest of the world.

The Secret Scenic Road

This morning I had fine weather again, so I decided to take one lass pass through the area I shot late yesterday afternoon and see wha the morning light looked like. I went back to the the turnoff to the unmarked “picnic site”. It’s a paved road that runs along the east side of the lake. The first thing you notice is a sign informing that 11km ahead the road to the Pukaki Canal is closed to all vehicles and only open to bicycles and pedestrians. I figured that as long as it got me 11km closer to the mountains, that would be fine with me. It turns out that the road along the lake isn’t the one that they were talking about, its a side road that is closed to vehicles. The road that I wanted goes all the way up into the National Park! About halfway up, it does turn into gravel, but still a very good road. The best thing is that since it is on the East side of Lake Pukaki, it has a far better view of the lake and mountains that the main park road on the West side. Over on the main road, there are only a couple places that you can see Mount Cook with the lake in the foreground. On my secret scenic road, you have dozens of great viewpoints. And absolutely no one else!. I only saw one car in three hours. I’m not sure why this road isn’t in any of the travel guides, it is the best kept secret on the South Island.

I had really nice weather for about 3 hours, but you could see the high clouds starting to move into the area. I had plenty of time to get all the shots that I wanted and by the time I made my way back out, the good weather was turning not so good. The only problem I had was the wind. It intensified as the morning went on until it was blowing so hard I almost couldn’t get my doors open a couple times. I did a couple flights with the DJI Inspire. The first spot was before the wind picked up too much. The second spot was about the time the wind started getting serious. I had found a small clearing in a forested area and my plan was to fly straight up to reveal the range of mountains and the lake. All went well until I got above the tops of the trees that were sheltering me from some of the wind. When I got up there, it started pushing the Quad back away from the clearing and I had to use full throttle forward to keep myself over the clearing. It was exciting for a few moments, but I managed to get a couple good passes. After that, the wind picked up so much that flying just was not an option.

I drove down to Oamaru un the coast to spend the night and am camped next to the harbor. Blue Penguins come ashore here at night, but it is doubtful that I will be able to get any photos because they come up after dark. Today is probably my last shooting day. It’s supposed to rain most of the day tomorrow, so I will just concentrate on getting everything packed up since I fly to Australia the next day. If this is the last shooting that I get to do in New Zealand, I ended on a high note.


A view from my “Secret Scenic Road”


A bit further on down the road. Interesting high altitude clouds coming in.


I also had nice views of Mount Cook without the lake in the foreground.


In some places, I could get right down to the lake shore. You can see whitecaps from the fierce wind.


Here’s a panorama of the whole national park.


You can see the clouds starting to boil over the lower peaks from the West.


Another panorama of the whole range.


Why not “! Chevy” or “!Toyota”? I could understand “!Ferrari”.


The harbor at Oamaru where I am camping. You can see tomorrow’s rainclouds starting to move in.