Weekend Away – Camperdown Feb/Mar 2020

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away where corona conjured images of sun, beer, a model of car I once drove and a virus that was going to impact a few of the world’s developing countries, a select group of the club’s elite photographers journeyed to Camperdown for a weekend of photography around the active volcanoes of Western Victoria.

Between eruptions, we clambered up the volcanoes, around their rims and deep into their craters. We photographed the lakes that formed in some of the craters and marvelled at the salt lakes that disappeared into the distance with few features to punctuate their surreal surface. We stepped over the lava flows and felt exhausted at the effort involved in turning the rocks into fences. We chanced upon a graveyard that was out of this world.

Really?

As usual, we used the local caravan park as our base camp. This one was a little different to other caravan parks we had stayed at. There were no people to greet us at reception, instead we entered our booking details into a machine and our keys dropped out. The park was on top of a hill providing great views over the township and 2 crater lakes. The botanical gardens were at our doorstep and provided ideal subject matter for our macroers. We knew we were going to be in for an interesting weekend.

Nibbles, drinks and lots of chat kick started the weekend on the Thursday afternoon before we tucked into a fine bbq. As the sun started to disappear over the crater lakes, we adjourned for some sunset over the crater lakes photography. We tested ourselves with environmental portraits using flash on our super models while still capturing the lakes and background in the near dark. Quite challenging, but when you know the secret, magical images appear on your camera screen.

After Friday sunrise photos, a tour around the botanical gardens and a hearty breakfast we headed east towards Colac. First stop after the tourist bureau was coffee and morning tea in a café by a crater lake. Yum, we made sure we had our priorities right.
From the café we could see Mt Porno in the distance, so we headed in that direction sure we would find something interesting. We did, but not what we were expecting. At Stonyford we chanced upon a tractor graveyard. An amazing array of old tractors that were spending their last days rusting away waiting for a group of enthusiastic photographers to stop on their way through and photograph them. And stop we did, we couldn't pass up a chance like this.

The caretaker thought we were a bit crackers, he was right. Why would you want to photograph them, they are only old tractors?

Bright blue, green and orange ones. Broken ones, rusty ones and plenty with plants growing up through them. A photographer’s delight. He still thought we were crackers when we left.

Next stop was Red Rock, a viewing platform with sweeping views over a volcano, cattle grazing in the crater and a red rock. Very impressive.

We then headed towards Beeac and the nearby salt lakes, stopping at a Llama farm on the way to grab some Llama photos to add to our collection.

The salt lakes can have an interesting but featureless surface that seems to disappear way into the distance. Picture the Uyuni lakes in Bolivia or Lake Eyre. Quite surreal.

We grabbed a late lunch at the Beeac pub before heading back via the stone fences that are prominent in this area. The effort involved in building these fences would have been enormous.

Final stop for the day was Mt Leura on the edge of Camperdown. A drive to the top gave us a great view of Mt Sugarloaf, a beautiful conical shaped mountain, and the surrounding undulating countryside that was at its best in the late afternoon light. We knew we would be back here a number of times.

Back to base camp now for bbq dinner, more photography around the botanical gardens and more sunset over the crater lakes photos to end a great day.

Saturday dawned completely fogged out, the weather that is, not us. Visibility was practically zero and made for some eerie shots from the mountain tops.
After breakfast, we headed west towards Mortlake, stopping off at a few of the crater lakes on the way. Bizarre antics from the local cows kept us amused at one of the lakes.

Mt Noorat was our main destination for the day. We headed off on the walking track that climbed to the top of the mountain and then out around the steeply undulating rim walk.

David launched his drone and captured a flyby of us at the end of the walk before we headed back to Camperdown, via Timboon and the trestle bridge. A walk to the top of Mt Sugarloaf, along the walking track that winds its way round and round the mountain, finished off an adventurous afternoon.

After a fine dinner at the pub, it was back to Mt Leura for some lovely photography of the undulating countryside that was at its best with the sun low in the sky, creating shadows on the little hills and valleys. We stayed there for sunset before heading back to the caravan park for after dark, night sky and flash photography to wrap up another great day.

Sunday morning was spent around Camperdown, including a trek up the clock tower in the main street. The tower is open one day a month, good timing, and provides impressive views of Camperdown and the surrounding countryside as well as many points of interest in the tower itself.

After lunch, it was off to Mt Elephant, our last stop for the weekend. Mt Elephant is another volcano with a wonderfully undulating rim walk. The wind had started to get stronger after lunch, and by the time the mountain climbers amongst us reached the rim walk, it was blowing a gale. It was a challenge not to be blown off the rim and down the steep slope as we followed the trail around.

Mt Elephant was a great way to finish off a fascinating weekend of photographing the volcanic area of western Victoria and there was a real feeling of satisfaction as we packed away our cameras and headed home.

Weekends Away Expedition Leader: Ian Spence

Weekend Away – Camperdown Feb/Mar 2020

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