What can I say, Rydal. Never have I heard of this small town, tucked away between Lithgow and Bathurst, but aren’t we sure glad we stumbled across this little gem.

This lovely cottage we stayed in is like something out of the Cotswold or like our little kids liked to reference, something out of Peter Rabbit (which coincidentally we saw a rabbit dash away as we drove up the driveway).

The lush gardens, open air, ponds with peacocks and geese roaming the grounds really added to the quaint majestic feel for the place. Being a farmstay too, the sound of the cows, chickens and frogs were pleasantly heard to add to the ambience.

This place was well located for us to escape to the country without having to travel too far, but far enough to get away from the hustle and bustle. It is also well located as a base point to visit other attractions such as Jenolan Caves, Lithgow, Bathurst and Orange without having to do the long drive back to Sydney and instead retreat to this property to help relax and rejuvenate. Be it by the fireplace, the pool or the gardens.

From a photography point of view (pun intended) this was a great opportunity to try out some new bits and pieces I had yet to explore, such as a new Moment Cinebloom diffusion filter I had on my lens to take off the digital edge and give a soft filmic look. I also took images to edit in Capture Ones new Panoramic Stitch and HDR rendering features that just came out with version 22. To my amazement, I was surprised how well these features processed the images with little fuss! I’m not normally a techy person and I know some of these feature are available on a phone, but for this to be now available to edit with high resolution RAW files, this to me has taken professional image creation to another level. I’m pretty keen to see how I can use this as part of my future work flow.