Newnes - Wolgan Valley

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Drove out to Wolgan Valley on Sunday night to walk around the old newnes mining site which closed in the 1920's - now a popular camping ground and tourist destination. Must say I didn't see any tents or tourists except for a few Kangaroos and Wombats.

Newnes is about a 2&1/2 hour drive west from Sydney about 45mins from Lithgow, perhaps more if you drive around during the day. There's a dirt road leading up to the mining site which goes for about 15-20km and there's one river crossing. 4x4 or wet boots past this point.

The skies were wonderfully dark, still some glow coming from the power station near Lithgow but it was barely noticable.

A couple of nightscapes, settings are the usual 14mm 2.8 - 30 sec - ISO4000.

Thanks for looking

1. Old train cart found as you arrive to the river crossing.
2. Coke Ovens

[Larryp (Laurie)]

There are disused railway tunnels there which have glow worms living in them. Did you see them, Carlos?
Nice photos

[iceman (Mike)]

Looks nice and dark!
Hard to get lighting on the foreground there, maybe a crescent moon?

Nice work as always.

[Rod771 (Rod)]

Nice shots Carlos, the Milkyway is positioned very nicely in the second one, Looks great!

Originally Posted by Larryp

There are disused railway tunnels there which have glow worms living in them. Did you see them, Carlos?
Nice photos

Glow worms eeeww!

[ourkind (Carlos)]

Originally Posted by Larryp

There are disused railway tunnels there which have glow worms living in them. Did you see them, Carlos?
Nice photos

Originally Posted by iceman

Looks nice and dark!
Hard to get lighting on the foreground there, maybe a crescent moon?

Nice work as always.

Originally Posted by Rod771

Nice shots Carlos, the Milkyway is positioned very nicely in the second one, Looks great!


Glow worms eeeww!

Thanks guys!

Laurie yes I did

The first one was in complete darkness except for the red LED light on the back of the camera casting some glow on the walls, the second one my friend was walking about further ahead, meanwhile I was playing with my own lighting and exposure times to catch the worms and some detail of the cave.

Not sure if you've been there before but they're quite tricky to see at first. One it's pitch black in the tunnel so you need a torch to get around (as you can see the ground is covered in boulders and puddles and gaps and holes), then once you switch the torch off your eyes need to time to adjust before your night vision kicks in, then finally unfortunately there aren't that many glow worms around, so you do need to look around, it certainly not lit up like a christmas tree as I once ignorantly thought It's definitely worth a visit.

A fun game to play while you're there is spot the constellation, I saw the Pleiades