NSW and Victoria Adventure

For some administrative reasons, I had to take a lot of my annual leave in December this year, which left me with most of the month off. To fill the couple of weeks before Xmas, I've set out to hike the Great Ocean Walk, a 100+ km coastal walk near Melbourne.

The plan is to take three days to drive the NSW and Victoria coasts before stopping to visit friends in Melbourne for a couple of days. Then I'll head to the start of the GOW, and spend 5 days hiking the beaches, forests, and rivers, terminating at The 12 Apostles. A bus ride back to my car and I'll head back to Sydney, but crossing through country Victoria and the NSW interior.

As with the AT, I'll post each day in sequence. Like a lot my travel these days, I'm treating it as a bit of a photo expedition (see my 500px profile for a recent trip to Vietnam, or follow my Instagram). I've brought my DSLR and will be hauling it along everywhere with some others gear.

I don't have my laptop to deal with the photos so you're probably seeing all of these posts after I've completed. Which means there's no need to panic no matter what I post. If you're seeing these, it all turned out fine.

Onwards!

Photo Gear Test

One of the things I always regretted a little bit about my AT hike was that I didn't have good camera with me. Like most hikers, I relied mostly on the camera in my phone which led to some decent shots but mostly pretty low quality stuff - particularly in the low light that often makes for the most beautiful images.

After that trip, I'd decided I would find a way to bring some quality gear with me on hiking treks to give myself better options. A couple of weeks ago, a friend invited me to join a group on a 30km (18mile) hike along the coast in New South Wales (The Coast Track, in the Royal National Park). This seemed like just the excuse I needed to buy some stuff and see what works. Discussion of the gear follows these pics.


For the gear heads, I have a Canon T6i (750D) DSLR with the standard kit lens (18-55mm). At some point I want a wider range zoom, and either a wide-angle prime lens or a portrait prime lens (I'll decide when I figure out what kinds of photos I tend to take more).  Before upgrading the lens, I wanted to figure out ways to carry stuff, so the first two things I wanted was a way to pack camera gear into a bag, and a way to carry the camera around that would keep it secured but also very accessible. I don't want to have to open my bag every time I want to take a shot, and I also don't want to have it dangling around my neck swinging while I walk.

Storage

f-stop's Small Shallow ICU

For the last hike along the Six Foot Track, I had a standard Lowepro bag. It's great for wandering cities and day-to-day, but I could never really get it to be convenient with a pack and poles. I'm not looking to carry a full pro rig or anything, so I settled on f-stop's small shallow ICU insert.  It's still too big for what I own but down the road I'll want to have spare batteries and a charger, filters, memory cards, and probably two lenses.

In the end I didn't really make much use of the insert except on the way to and from the track. The weather was beautiful and dry, and the track has no really technical bits. There were some beach walks where sand concerned me a bit, but never enough to make me hide the camera. I'll have to report back after I've taken it on a longer hike where I need to hide the camera more often (rock scrambles and weather), or have access to more options.

Accessibility

Doubles as a perfect bracket
for shooting your feet.

On the Six Foot, I had to constantly open my Lowepro bag and take the camera out whenever I wanted a shot, then return it to the bag when I was ready to walk again. For this trek, I picked up a Capture Clip from Peak Design. This clip attaches to your shoulder strap and allows you to suspend the camera (lens down) from the pack directly at chest level. A little release button is all it takes to pop the camera up and start shooting.

I loved it! The camera was always either in my hands or on the clip. It was super quick and easy to go from hands free to shooting. I did have to be a bit more cautious when putting the bag down, but that wasn't hard to remember since the camera was in my face.

Stability

Is that an MYOG monopod in your pocket,
 or...?

One final problem I need to solve is how to get a tripod without carrying a tripod. As a hiker, I generally dislike carrying anything that has only one purpose if I can avoid it, and a tripod does not have many other uses. I had seen some people talking about turning their trekking poles into monopods as a compromise. This also had the added appeal of being my very first make-your-own-gear project! I ran off to the local hardware store and picked up a small 1/4" thread bolt and two matching nuts, along with some epoxy. Half an hour with a drill and I had what I needed - thread the camera onto the protruding bolt at the top of the pole et voilà: Monopod! I was surprised at just how strong it was - most people are using them with small point-and-shoots, not DSLRs. My camera was solidly attached.

Cost: $4.

It was a very bright day, so there was no call for a monopod. I tried to force it a bit but any time I used a slow shutter speed, the shot came out badly overexposed. My sense was that the poles I'm currently using (Black Diamond adjustable poles) don't really provide the stability that I'd need with a heavier camera. I'll have to test it more fully when I get a better opportunity. I also don't love that I have to remove the Capture Clip baseplate before affixing the monopod. If this is going to work as a monopod, I might invest in some sort of mount for the top of the pole to avoid that minor irritant.

In the end the Capture Clip is my favourite thing ever, and I'm pretty sure the f-stop insert will be just right for my purposes. The monopod is still a work in progress. But gear aside, I had a great walk with a really eclectic mix of people (we were 17, including a Swedish former tennis pro, an American teaching English in Hong Kong, and a Welsh doctor).

For more of my photos, look at the following:

• @serjepedia: I'm least picky about photos on Instagram. Pretty much anything could end up here, but usually only one or two related to any event. More of a "this is what I did today" thing than a photography thing.
• Flickr/dimthoughts: Most of my good shots end up here. Lots of pics othat are good, but probably not of interest to people who don't know me or weren't involved in the events. The amount of post-processing varies a lot.
• 500px/kryptych: My best stuff goes here, usually after some more serious time in Lightroom/Photoshop. So if you want a small set of more highly curated photos, this is the place to go.

New Camera and New Friends

The new DSLR makes selfies harder.

After the sad death of my camera on my last outdoors adventure, I went out and bought myself my very first real exchangeable lens DSLR (Canon EOS Rebel T6i/750D for camera gearheads).

Last weekend, the camera made its first trip into the bush as I hiked the 45km long Six Foot Track over a couple of days with a group of new friends.

The Cast

I was invited along by Anna, a good friend who is also an outdoor adventurer. She had a trip planned with two Brits and a couple of New Zealanders - making us a pretty eclectic mix of ex-pats. Most of the group were new to trail names, but the girls all found themselves with one by the end.  You can see from this group photo that I'm still getting used to the camera.

Anna (Gollum), Nigel, Krissy (Necky), Kirsten (Gnomey), and Mack

The Hike

For those not into the local bushwalking scene, the Six Foot Track is a 45 km "trail" that is probably most famous for the annual Six Foot Track Marathon race. It's one of those trails that everyone does at some point, and so this was our turn. As it turns out, the Six Foot Track really ought to be called the Never Ending Dirt Road. It felt like we spent half a day hiking in the woods, and a day and a half walking along a dirt fire trail - shared with trucks, cars, and dirt bikes. I wouldn't rate it highly for the walking.

On the plus side we did end up with some good wildlife. In addition to the usual array of kangaroos, wallabies, and lorikeets, we saw two echidna, a wombat, a lyrebird, and a large goanna. Sadly, I have still not ticked koala off of my list of Australian fauna seen in the wild. Next time, I guess.

Goanna gettin' hisself some eggs

Kangaroo. Tree. Harmony.

There is also a long suspension bridge at around the midway point which made for a bit of fun.

Necky did not hate the suspension bridge.

Trail Philosophy

Every hiker has their own approach to being on trail. After doing the AT, my style now leans heavily towards "minimalist self-deprivation." I also lean towards "camp is the place you stay while you wait to walk again." This is not a common hiking philosophy. The 6' Track crew was keen to get to camp early to have lots of time there. They also had a very different meal philosophy - where I happily dine on a diet of cliff bars and peanut butter wraps for a few days, our meal plan for this weekend included:

• fresh wraps with lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado, cheese, and deli meats for lunches; 
• mushroom risotto, banana custard, and a bit of port for dinner; 
• and coffee, tea, eggs, bacon, and toast for breakfast.

All of that was made with fresh ingredients, from scratch. Mack is a killer trail cook. Mack also made me carry a lot of food. I have mixed feelings about Mack. (But then, I've made a conscious decision to carry rocks for nothing in the past, so I suppose I won't hold this grudge.)

Trail cook extraordinaire.
Also an all around delightful guy.

Besides the gourmet food, it was rather nice to have some real time hanging out at camp. I even managed to redeem myself as a fire builder after the fiasco of my last attempt in Australia. I didn't even have to resort to accelerants.

Nigel takes a moment out from wombat spotting
to look very British on some logs.

Most of the highlights of the trip involved a lot of conversation, laughter and inside jokes. Unfortunately, those are difficult to convey here. Here's a picture of Necky trying to explain to Gollum what a meerkat is, for a flavour of the sort of thing:

If only the Italian word for meerkat was "meerkat",
this would have been much easier.

All in all, the hike was a great time. The trail itself was forgettable, but as is often the case in these things, the people made all the difference. I guess that's a good general life lesson: visit beautiful places, but most importantly, bring beautiful people.

Gnomey proves that even walking on a dirt road
can be fun with the right companions

Happy Trails!

(More photos taken with my shiny new toy here)