One of the few attractions in Coromandel that I hadn’t yet visited was the Driving Creek Railway. I had been given mixed stories about it from friends who had been there and now that I have been I can sort of understand way. The place is all about one man’s passion for pottery and unless you are interested in the how and why of the railway itself, then you are probably not going to enjoy a lot of the trip. Unfortunately the speaker in our carriage was a bit iffy, so we only heard some of the story behind it all, but it was enough to get the general gist of things.
As we traveled up the hill which uses switch-backs to get the train up the sleep slope, the driver was pointing out photo opportunities for us. Sadly we missed many of them because the train was going too fast and by the time you worked out what you were supposed to be photographing you had missed it completely. This is not a good fit for photographers unless they are willing to get creative – and we did! If you can’t capture a sharp image in a moving train, then try for the abstracts!
The views of Coromandel on the way up, and at the Eyefull Tower at the top were fantastic. I fired off a bunch of images to turn into a panorama but have yet to do anything with them. Landscapes are really not me, they just don’t excite me enough to even try too hard. But looking out from the top of the tower was really something. Take the camera away from me and the entire trip up and down was a lot of fun. If I ever go back again I will know when to be ready with the camera and won’t miss as many of the opportunities along the way.
And the last image shows you where my photographic bent really is. I found a very busy little bee in a lily outside of the toilet block and just couldn’t resist making an image of it. Note this is without my nature lens which I had left in the car to reduce the weight I was carrying.
