At long last, after two weeks of waiting in Sea Lake, I started working on Monday at the Sea Lake Grain Flow receiving depot. However, the weather continues to be an influencing factor in my shifts, with two being shortened due to high moisture levels in the grain and today’s being cancelled all together. I spent my waiting time wisely by building up a series of images of Lake Tyrrell and Sea Lake, so in this post, I am pleased to share some of my stories and images of Lake Tyrrell.
Lake Tyrrell Salt
As I mentioned in my last post, ‘Visiting Sea Lake’, Lake Tyrrell has been host to the harvesting of salt for many years. The salt these days is used mainly for swimming pool treatments, but, more recently, a thriving industry has been created from the production of different flavoured salt flakes for human consumption (Lake Tyrrell Salt).
There is no doubt that the Lake is a major tourist attraction – on my many visits to the viewing platform in all sorts of weather, I have never been on my own. One of the characteristics of the lake is that the wind moves the water around – a south wind drives the water to the north and vice versa – this is due to the lake being very shallow. In this respect the lake is continually changing. The best time to catch the vibrant pink colour is when there is a layer of water, no wind and the sun is not at its peak
Lake Tyrrell Tours
Before sunrise one morning, I was taken out to the lake by Julie, who runs the local Lake Tyrrell Tours. Julie has extensive knowledge of the lake and I highly recommend taking one of her tours to anyone heading in this direction. During this outing, I mainly flew the drone, the best way to get a feel for the colours, patterns and debris that litters the edge and centre of the lake.
One of the joys of flying the drone at the lake is the ability to fly out over the water to the middle areas where it would be rather a long walk. I still have much to explore, but on my sunrise trip with Julie, I managed to capture a few interesting shots. One of the challenges with the lake is that it experiences high winds due to it being very exposed, thus limiting the use of the drone
Abandoned infrastructure
The salt works was originally based at the current viewing platform, however, since then, it has move to two more locations further north up the west coast. This has meant that there are the remains of previous infrastructure in at least two locations which aligns nicely with my Nature v Man theme. It is interesting to see how the different materials degrade – for example timber v concrete! Needless to say, the iron is rusting pretty quickly in such a corrosive environment.
Although I am now working six days per week, I am determined to get out with the camera and drone as much as possible. However, I have to accept that, during my shifts, I am sure to miss ideal sunrises and sunsets, but I hope that I will strike it lucky on my days off. Irrespective, Lake Tyrrell presents some amazing photographic opportunities no matter what the weather is doing.
To view more of my Lake Tyrrell and Sea Lake images, please visit this gallery, which I will be continually adding to in the coming weeks.
3 Responses
Wow. Beautiful views. Another place to visit in this state of ours.
Liking the images Martin ????will be in touch soon to sync up ok????
Thank you, Tony. Time off organised, will catch up in the middle of the week.