LOCATION – RAINFOREST GALLERY WARBURTON, AUSTRALIA

Intro

The Rainforest Gallery is a popular tourist attraction on the slopes of Mt Donna Buang. For good reason too. It is a stunning look into the vegetation that is often seen in the hills around Melbourne. A 15 min drive from Warburton, it is easily accessible on a day trip from Melbourne.

Essentials

Map

Content

I had the joy of visiting with my 12yo daughter who is rapidly becoming a wonderful companion for my camera exploits. Each year we go for an extended bike ride over a few days and Warburton has become a favourite destination. This year was the first year we had visited this fantastic attraction. My uncultured self thought it was an art gallery for some time. Nothing against art galleries, but taking photos is my deal. Less looking at others. Anyhow once I became a little more cultured, I realised this was a fabulous 20min walkway into the rainforest of Mt Donna Buang.

Upon arriving you are faced with a fabulous platform that overhangs the forest below. You then have a series of steepish steps that takes you into the forest. This is all fantastic, but the highlight is a little 50m extension that has this utterly photogenic scene as seen below.

When I was at the start of my photography career I spent a lot of times searching for scenes such as this. These are my happy places. Mountain steams, waterfalls, moss and lush vegetation. Make sure to photograph the amazing trees with moss detail. A macro lens could be really nice here. The day I visited was very poor weather but this is great for this environment. Soft dispersed cloudy light without harsh lights and dark shadows.

As you walk around there are other examples of rainforest landscape including some of the tallest trees in Australia. I found these hard to capture in a nice way from a low vantage point. However the glass platform looked fantastic protruding into the forest from below.