24 December 2018
Buchan caves and more
Lots of attractions today including way too many cave photos which will generally not have much description. After the cave I went to see a historic railway bridge and then drove along a treacherous dirt track to lonesome bay, where a Pelican evaded my camera every time I got near.
Today I used my actual Sony lense, a 28mm F/2.
Now its time to go into the first cave, the Royal cave. The path was narrow and you had to duck right down a lot. It was generally longer and more claustrophobic than I expected it to be. This one has a reflective pool.
This is one of the only times I bothered to upload a HDR thingy, even though I made a few in lightroom. Notice how purple it is compared to the previous photo? It is also a massive file size and makes lightroom slow.
Super super calcified. Alarmingly, the air in the cave was so moist it made my camera malfunction. Despite having the cover on the hot shoe attachment I got a warning that an unauthorized accessory was mounted to it. I googled this once I got out and its a common issue if moisture gets into the contacts on the hot shoe.
Here are some of the stairs. Both caves had quite a lot of stairs. The tour groups were small, especially once we went to the second cave.
The holes down were very deep. There is another cave under here called the federal cave, but you need to be a proper caver to do that one, I think there is water involved.
It was surprising how your head gets so close to the formations. Some had been snapped off in accidents according to the guide.
This is a close up of some calcification. Again it looks like coral. But actually, it might be? This used to be ocean, like much of Australia.
This is inside the second cave now, actually I think the last few shots were, the fairy cave. Here is some of the infrastructure.
You cannot walk all the way over the top as it is falling down. Trains ran over it until the 1980's when it was damaged in a bushfire.
This is a HDR of the trestles. I think I should be using HDR where there is bright light, rather than when its dark. I dont know, clearly I have no idea. It kind of works.
After a drive down a rough dirt track in a Suzuki Kizashi, I arrived at Lonesome bay, and it was very lonesome indeed.
There was strange algae and a Pelican floating in the distance. As I got closer to the Pelican he would swim off around the corner out of view.
Here is a shot facing back where I had came from. Different light obviously. Probably better light actually. This place would look great just before sunset rather than at noon.