This morning started off getting some of my stuff ready for tomorrow. There’s a thing we’re doing for Camera Club, but more on that tomorrow. One thing I did though was set up my GoPro to record photos for a time lapse. Less about what I was capturing and more about making sure I would be able to fit almost a whole daytime onto the GoPro’s card and making sure it would keep going all day. It does and it did, you can see below 3,272 images in a my test time lapse, so we’re right to go for tomorrow.
Having said that, as you can see, because the GoPro is silver, and we’ll also be shooting through glass tomorrow, we’re going to need to cover the front of the device in something black. Will have to make him a little face guard tomorrow out of some cardboard me thinks.
So while that was all happening, we figured we’d go for a little nature walk, we have so much wilderness around us it seems a shame to waste it. We needed to get out before the rains came so we picked a place and off we head.
We decided to go back to Lerderderg State Forest, however this time we’d go deeper in from our side and looked up O’Brien’s Crossing. Driving along roads probably not intended for our Toyota Camry, we stopped a couple of times where we could find cell signal to check our progress, and we finally made it to the Crossing.
There were a bunch of people camping there by the river with the rv Smokey Point services. Seems like a great spot for it, but at this time of the year everything is constantly damp and the threat of yet more rain is enough to make me not want to go camping around this season. But it seems there are those who live for this stuff.
David and I went for a stroll along the banks away from the campers, taking in the river and the sites as we went along. It’s always cool to see the cube-shaped droppings of wombats near the water, it shows there’s plenty around that area. We snapped some pics as we walked along before turing back for the car. The walk on the side we picked wasn’t very long and the clouds above were becoming more gloomy.
Possible Platypus holes? [above]
Just as we got into the car the rain came down. As we drove away from the O’Brien’s Crossing it started bucketing down, and thus an end came to our bush walking for the day.
We decided to head out of Lederderg State Park on the opposite side we came in, take a right and head up to Trentham. Folks talk about the place like it’s a little gem, so we thought we’d better check it out given we were not far away. Passing through Blackwood there wasn’t much to look at; a local pub, corner store and a couple of little shops, the main industry in Blackwood seems to be beer and Bed & Breakfast places.
Trentham was not far from Blackwood, and if I’m honest I didn’t even notice the other town you pass through to get there, Barry’s Reef. Arriving in Trentham you could tell it was as everyone says, a lovely little town. Well-maintained period buildings line the couple of streets that make up the main part of town. We braved the rain and walked the sidewalks to see what was what in Trentham. Like Blackwood, Trentham’s trade seems to be food and beverage service, however it differs in that it also has a few nick knack stores thrown in. They were all lovely, but all pretty expensive. Clearly this is a tourist town.
We thought about having lunch in town, but decided against it when a bakery was selling a pie with a side salad for $12. At $12 for a meat pie and salad, there’d better be a bunch of salad on the plate. Another time perhaps we’ll partake, but as we weren’t particularly hungry, we passed on the expensive fare.
There is a store in town, I forgot to get the name of, that had some pretty cool stuff in it. They had a little TARDIS, though when I say little I mean one a kid could fit in, they also had lots of Pinocchio statues, movie memorabilia, and other strange curios. Attached was another store selling homewares and the like. Of particular interest was an indian headdress that I wouldn’t mind getting one day as a shoot prop, but at $100 today was not the day.
Maybe we should have checked out the other attractions, like Trentham Falls, but with the rain coming and going we’d decided to leave it to another day with better weather.
On the way home we stopped in at a little nursery, Blackwood Ridge, off the track. A great little set up, but I can’t see how they do much business where they are given you pass two other “nursery and garden” places before you get to his. But he is relatively inexpensive, so we may venture back there when we have our plans for the gardens at the new house sorted.
After the nursery we found ourselves headed toward a local reservoir and decided to check it out, it’s massive and appears to be open for motor boats and jet skis, one of the latter taking advantage of the short run of sun we had, was hooning along the top of the water. It would be a good picnic place, with a park for little kids.
Finally home, we had the pizza left over from last night (we went to Saprano’s) and we took a look at our photos from the morning while I checked on the GoPro to make sure it was still going.
Deciding we needed to retrieve supplies for dinner, we head off to Foodworks, but took our cameras along to stop at the local footy oval to capture some snaps of the game in progress. It was Darley (112) v Melton South(69) at Darley Park. We haven’t taken photos of any local football but it was a good experience. With our limited equipment (certainly not that of a sports photographer) I think we did all right. David will probably add some to his Flickr if he finds any he likes. Mine, below, are blurry at times, but lets just say it adds to the sense of movement. We’ll probably hit up a few more games to hone our skills.
Still not sure if this dude’s hair is real?
That’s about it for the day, I’m about to turn in, I have a long day tomorrow with the Witness King Tides event, making some money for the camera club, along with other members who have volunteered. It should be an interesting day.