Sunday outing to Ballarat and Dog Rocks

The Sunday outing rapidly approaches yet again, this time it’s a trip to Ballarat for the Ballarat Foto Biennale. There are loads and loads of exhibitions happening in Ballarat and the surrounding area for the next three weeks and it’s always worth the trip.

Meet at 9am at the corner of Sturt St and Dawson St South directly across from the church. The plan is to see as much as possible on the day. It is impossible to see everything so visiting the website and planning your day would be a good move.

For those interested in making a detour on the way home the sunset at Dog Rocks near Geelong could be very worthwhile.

To get to Dog Rocks take the Midland Hwy and head towards Geelong.
Near Batesford turn right onto Dog Rocks Rd, you can also turn on to Blackall Rd which becomes Dog Rocks Rd. Then you will see the granite outcrops on your right on top of the rise.

You can park off the side of the road adjacent to the rocks. Single wire farm fence, walk of 10-500 metres depending on which bits you go to. The familiar tree and nearby rocks are barely 10 metres from the road.

Cheers,
Pete

Sunday Outing Report – Murchison Gap Lookout

Twas raining when I walked out to my car at 05.10am for the 1 1/4 hour trip to Murchison Gap. I knew the traffic would be light at that time in the morning and I just prayed that the weather at the meeting place would be better. I went to fill up with fuel at the Shell servo and standing with the nozzle in my fuel tank ready, I realised that there was no attendant to start the pump working. Just my luck that he’d picked that moment to take a toilet break. 15 minutes later I was on my way, armed with a cup of coffee but now at least 10 minutes behind schedule. I had a clear run through Melbourne and onto the Hume which was also pretty devoid of traffic and it stayed that way until around 4 km from the turn off at Broadford. I could see lights behind me catching me up and about 500 meters before the turn off, a red Land-rover Discovery tore past me and about 10 meters ahead of me swerved into my lane and turned left where I was turning. This idiot then promptly held me up by driving at 55kph all the way to Murchison Gap where I turned off to the lookout. This and the attendant at the servo had put me 20 minutes behind schedule and the light was breaking through when I got out of my car at 7am.

There were another two cars at the lookout and I saw Cuc, TI and a few others and a voice from the half light told me that Craig Francisco was also there. It was raining and the view was flat and grey, umbrellas were the equipment of the moment and the talk was slowly getting around to “no sunrise” and “I hear breakfast calling”. But like I always say, you can’t judge the weather in Victoria and before we knew it the rain had stopped and the sky started to colour up, so we had ourselves a semi-sunrise. I say semi because we never actually saw the sun, only the light and its rays poking through the clouds. Unfortunately the sunrise was short lived and it soon started to grey over again and it rained again. It was at this point that people announced their departure and even after about another 30 minutes Craig and I also headed off for some food at Broadford.

The Semi-Sunrise
Still in My Shorts Though!!!

After breakfast at the bakery and with more rain looking imminent, Craig said he was going home and I set off back towards Strath Creek and on to Flowerdale. I got a few ordinary landscape shots here but when I stopped off at the side of King Parrot Creek for a walk along the banks, I was startled by something in the water. I saw that it was a mammal of some sort and it had gone under before I could even touch my camera. But then suddenly up it popped onto a branch at the opposite side of the creek. I fired off two shots, clunk clunk, no light and 1 sec each shot and both were blurred so I quickly whacked up the ISO to whatever number it happened to stop on which was 3,200 and I fired away. I got 8 shots before it disappeared and luckily one or two were in focus.

King Parrot Creek

I then went on the Kinglake and Mason’s Waterfall in Kinglake National Park where Parks Victoria have done a great job of making the bush like a sidewalk on Swanston Street but more importantly the viewing platform is useable (if not a little over ambitious) for a change and you can see the entire waterfall. A visit to the café in Kinglake and then a very wet and dreary drive home was all that was left of the day.

Mine and the others images can be seen on the gallery HERE

Thank you to all that made the journey and I’m sorry the sunset didn’t work this time. There’s always next time.