| Paddy's River Falls, Tumbarumba, NSW.
Another 'Holiday Theme Shoot' for the Wrinkle in Time series. Shoot Details: Christmas in Australia is at the height of Summer, and it gets hot. Sometimes very hot. We spent several very hot days in Tumbarumba, in the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales. One day, we decided to drive into the National Park in the mountains for a picnic, confident we could easily find a safe place to swim in the splashing alpine streams so plentiful in the area. This is the Snowy River Dam Catchment area, so there is plenty of water. However, most of it is at the bottom of some incredibly steep slopes, so we spent several frustrated hours with grumpy kids in the back seat, driving through beautiful, precipitous mountains, looking for somewhere to swim. Eventually, we gave up, had our picnic by the side of the road and headed back in to Tumba'.
A few kilometres from town, we spied a small signpost saying "Paddy's River Falls". It had to be worth a try. 2 km of winding, narrow road brought us to a gravel parking area on the side of the hill. We could hear the river. What a sweet sound!
>From the old lookout, we could see water cascading over a precipice way below. Would we find a safe place to swim at the bottom of the hill? We had to risk it. We had to know. In hindsight, climbing down the old concrete stairway through the long dry grasses at the height of summer was not a wise thing to do. We forgot about the snake risk and threw caution to the wind. We were headed for water!
The trek was worth it. The icy water thundered down over the cliff into a series of rocky pools and then rushed away downstream. We spent a delicious afternoon there away from the heat, carefully negotiating slippery rocks and clear, cold, swirling pools. The waterfall itself was too strong to enter, but we enjoyed a thrilling time sitting by the edge of the thundering torrent, being buffetted by the downdraft and the spray.
In the panorama, our 4 year old son plays in the foreground in a shallow pool, while Barb and the bigger boys climb on the rocks below the waterfall.
Tech Specs: We used a Canon EOS 620 with 35-105 AF lens, mounted onto a Kaidan QuickPan Magnum Head and Manfrotto Tripod. |
