Photography in Gippsland – a Yarram Weekend

The last weekend of March found a dozen mostly large format photographers exploring the town of Yarram and surrounding areas in Gippsland  – Yarram is about 220 kilometres east of Melbourne. There was initially some concern about the availability of fuel, as the Middle East situation was starting to have an impact locally. We found no issues, although there were some restrictions on diesel supply.

There is a good bakery, and a couple of interesting coffee shops in  Yarram, but night time eating is largely restricted to variations on pub-style food.  Accommodation is plentiful.

Photographically, there is a range of environments to explore, from the Ninety-mile Beach, to the leech-infested Tarra-Bulga National Park. We did some scouting on Thursday and found, among other possibilities, some wind-formed sand sculptures on Reeves Beach – the light was wrong as it was late afternoon – so we decided to return in the morning – a mistake. There was a major thunderstorm overnight, and the flat mild sea of the day before was now pounding the beach with metre-plus waves.

There were some some interesting sand ripples at McLoughlin’s Beach though:

Some kilometreseast of Welshpool can be found Agnes Falls. It has a drop of around 60m, and although quite attractive from the viewing platform, it would probably require rope and rappelling skills to get to the bottom of the gorge in order to appreciate its “full” glory.  The viewing platform is a short walk from the carpark.

Tarra-Bulga National Park, which is about 24 kilometres north of Yarram, is approached by a narrow sealed road which gets  “narrower” the further up the mountain. It becomes a little startling to find a caravan park about halfway up – meeting a caravan up or down would make for an exciting interaction.

The Park is quite small but has one of the few remaining vestiges of eucalypt temperate rainforest, largely  undisturbed. There  are a number of tracks in the Park, two of the more accessible being the Tarra Valley Rainforest Walk to Cyathea Falls,  and the Fern Gully Nature Walk which passes over Corrigan’s Suspension Bridge.

Yarram architecture includes a number of churches, and notably the South Gippsland Creamery and Butter Factory, and the Regent Theatre. There are a few interesting murals around the town, including an initially unsettling one commemorating the Faraday school kidnapping.

A visit to the Port Albert Fish and Chip Co is good for lunch, although the port itself is not striking. There are a few old buildings with some character.

One piece of architecture that is well worth spending some time with is the Anglican church at Tarraville, built in 1856 and still partially active for special events. It is remarkable for its nail-free construction, built with oak pins (tunnels), although the current roof is nailed corrugated iron.

It proved to be a very pleasant and productive weekend for large and medium format photography, and the socialising was truly excellent. After our usual Saturday night dinner, we convened at the Holiday Park (where most of us were staying) for our Print Viewing – prints from images taken on previous trips.

The next get-together will be at Omeo in the High Country in October.