Back on Sunday, June 14, 2015, almost 7 years ago, I came down to Koonwarra to photograph and document the series of bridges on this section of the South Gippsland Railway line. And on June 18, 2019, in a comment I announced my intention to come back with my drone and fly this section.
Well, I finally got to come back, not with the drone, but with a hand-held GoPro while riding an electric mountain bike. Actually, the GoPro is the fourth one I have owned, and is the latest Hero10 Black, a very impressive performer. It features Hypersmooth 4.0 in-body video stabilisation, which does an excellent job of smoothing out any vibrations when you are hand-holding it. The stabilisation is so good it removes the need for a gimbal system, but I found it is a bit tricky to keep it level, so my horizon was a bit askew. More practice is required.
In the 7 years since I was last here, a lot has changed at Koonwarra. The rail trail has been finished over the old bridges, keeping most of the original trestle supports intact, with a new deck of concrete paving and safety fencing. But the biggest change is the new highway deviation that takes the South Gippsland Highway over the top of the rail trail to the north, then back again a little later to eliminate a series of curves in the original highway alignment.
Since the railway preservation group that were running trains on the line from Nyora to Leongatha wound up, the ROW has very quickly been converted into a rail trail, and it is well worth a ride along it. It is a very well constructed trail, with fabulous views. Along the section here, there are notice boards providing historical notes and photos of the wooden bridges when they were in use for trains.
The video clip starts close to the Koonwarra Recreation Reserve and travels over the group of three bridges, then turns around and heads back on the trail to where it started.
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