Mike Stacey

Carnarvon Gorge

Added 2024-04-10 13:27:39 +0000 UTC

Last week we had the opportunity to go to Carnarvon Gorge. We were picked up at Brisbane airport by Simon, a Bundaberg photographer who'd booked Aurora for a one day shoot out there. The one day shoot involved one day of travel, the day of shooting and then another day travel back. It was about 9 hours drive to the gorge, which is in Central Queensland. Simon had actually driven down to Brisbane from Bundaberg to pick us up, making the trip around 13 hrs and over 1,000km for him.

Simon supplied us with a tent and stuff to camp with, including some food. Like a true Queenslander he brought a lot of meat with him, which neither Aurora or I eat much of so we ended up buying our own.

The walk to this place, called the Amphitheatre, was about 7 km, mainly flat easy walking. It's a stunning place for sure. A narrow slot in a cliff leads up a very restricted canyon and opens out into this large kind of circular area, hemmed in by large cliffs. The light in there is typical canyon light and I'm familiar with it due to similar canyons in the Blue Mountains.

I don't get the chance to shoot in places like this anymore so I loved it.

There was a fence inside the amphitheatre that you're not supposed to go beyond so what did we do? Went beyond it of course, much to the disgust of some walkers who were resting in the area. There was a wall out of our sight, but I could see that the sunlight hitting the opposite wall would be reflecting some super soft light onto it - so we jumped the fence and weren't disappointed.

More coming from this little venture.

We're in Brisbane at the moment, the big city was a downer after being out there in the quiet for 4 days. Friday we fly to the Whitsundays (Airlie Beach) where we stay with a photographer for 3 nights then we stay in our own place for a few days. After that I fly back to Cairns to stay with my bro while Aurora flies to Perth then Melbourne for work.

From the end of April we're lucky enough to be house minding in the Blue Mountains for a few months and hopefully I will have permanent work by then.