A pre-heatwave photo session

I have a family member who is keen on photography at the moment and, in particular, Astrophotography and can be seen (or not) sitting out in the back yard in the dark looking at the wonders of the night sky through his telescope at all hours. He does take some stunning photos but wanted to have a go at taking photos of a waterfall of which there are a limited number here in town but we thought we would head up to Picnic Point on a cool day last week for a photo session before the current heatwave started.

I have mentioned Picnic Point before as the gardens are quite beautiful during the Carnival of Flowers but it is a popular place to visit for both tourists and locals all year round and well worth a visit if you are in Toowoomba anytime.

I really wanted to get a photo from the bottom of the Q150 flagpole which is 150 feet high and was built to celebrate Queensland's 150th birthday celebrations.

 

It flies high above the tallest trees and is such a wonderful landmark. If you are from out of town and want to find Picnic Point just look for the flag as it is visible from both down the Range and right across town.  

 With the photos of the flagpole taken we then headed down the hill to the waterfall and on the way came across the Hitching Rail which I had never seen before. It can't be too old as the locks weren't rusty as yet. 

Then we arrived at the top of the waterfall which was nice and cool. This waterfall was shut off for a number of years during the drought so it has been nice having it running again since the 2011 floods.

From the top of the waterfall there is a short walk down the hill to the bottom which is surrounded by shrubs of all varieties....

...and there is quite a little rainforest down there. 

Lots of weddings take place here as there is a wedding gazebo available which is surrounded by the lush shrubs and bushes.

The walkway leads to the bottom of the waterfall....

...as well as the start to two of the many walking tracks at Picnic Point...the Firetrail Track...

...and the Pardalote Track.

If you keep walking down the hill there is a lookout which is perched right on the edge of the range...

 

...where you can watch the traffic driving up and down the Toowoomba range. These roads were badly damaged during the floods and had to be rebuilt over a number of years. The range was closed for a number of days as parts of it had been washed away and trucks were unable to bring food in to the supermarkets during that time which made for an interesting time as some residents were panic buying.

We had taken enough photos for one day so headed back up to the top of the hill to the restaurant where we spotted people setting up for a wedding so I took a quick photo as it felt a bit intrusive even though it was all happening right beside the public walkway. I felt sorry for the bride and groom as it was extremely windy there and I was hoping the vases of flowers wouldn't fall over. It is always a bit risky getting married outdoors isn't it? 

In the end the photos of the waterfall didn't turn out as well as we had hoped even though the 'aperature' ...whatever that is...was adjusted this way and that. This year I am determined to use my new camera a lot more and learn how to use it properly. I might even check out the U3A as they might have photography classes. 'They' say that learning something new is good for the brain as we get older :-)

Have a great weekend everyone and I hope that those who are experiencing the heatwave can keep cool while our Northern Hemisphere friends try to keep warm.