A quick trip - Edith Falls, Nitmiluk National Park
As most of you who follow me on Facebook will know, things have been a bit hectic recently and I have had very little time to get away to take photos. My partner and I decided to grab one night away whilst we could, before the Christmas rush starts! We left Darwin at around 5am, to get to Robin Falls (near Adelaide River, NT) for dawn. We were a little bit late, but turned out to be near perfect timing - we walked along the creek to the falls, arriving when the light was shining perfectly on the rock face. Bad news was, there was absolutely no water in it!
We are at the end of our long dry season, but we did have a very high rainfall rate for October, so I was hoping for just a little water flowing! The trip was still worth it though - for the research - sunrise is definitely the time to visit for photography purposes! (And if you like to swim by yourself, with no other visitors!)
This is the only shot I got from the falls area itself, at Robin Falls - this was all the "cascading" water I could find!
This shot is from the creek at Robin Falls - it provided for lots of great photo opportunities for long exposures. Just watch out for the large golden orb spider webs, and the green ants!
We relaxed at Robin Falls Creek for a while and eventually arrived at Edith Falls at lunch time. We set up camp and enjoyed the outdoors air for a while.
This is the bottom pool at Edith Falls - the lowest water levels I have ever seen here! There was a rocky island in the middle of the pool, and the bottom pool was open to swimming. The water levels have always been much higher when I have visited before, and I've never been able to swim here... So in I jumped with the camera to wade across to the island!
My favourite pool at Edith Falls has always been the top pools. It's about a 45 minute (steep) walk to the top, but is well worth the walk. The view you are greeted with at the top is worth it!
The pools are often quiet and they are large enough you can find your own pocket to explore! Again (I see a theme occuring), the water levels were very low, but the place is still beautiful!
I was here around 5pm, and the sun was due to dip below an escarpment at around 5:30pm, so I only had a short time to capture the area. The sky was incredible - an approaching storm gave a great contrasting backdrop to the bright red rocks.
The two shots of Edith Falls, above, were taken with a 0.6 Lee GND filter and a Lee polariser to add contrast to the scene (and help with the reflections).
Yes, these skies are quite dark! We decided to make a swift exit before it rained.....
We got to the top of the hill and saw the wall of water coming toward us (if you live in the Aussie Top End or anywhere tropical I am sure you understand what I mean - you can see the rain coming toward you in a dense misty sheet!).
We ran down the rest of the path in the rain (I didn't know my running legs were still working!).... and made it down to shelter in about 8 minutes - my Territory Hiking Boots served me well (good ol' double pluggers!!).
Had an awesome time. Even for a night, it is well worth escaping to the bush... it's very relaxing! Any night you have available - get outdoors. Even in the wet season! It rained for around 6 hours in the night - our tent was perfectly dry, the rain was relaxing to listen to on the tent and it made for a very cool night's sleeping.
Does anyone else go camping in the wet season? Or do you only go in the dry? I have some great wet season camping stories.... but that'll have to wait for another day!