Another hike to Broga Hill with fellow myphotocity (www.myphotocity.com) forumers. This time I've brought my girlfriend, Valerie along. She had never hike before this trip but she was really good - Only stopped twice during the hike up to the peak.
Since Chee Wah drove me to Broga Hill the week before on 20/02/10, I offered to drive this time. We left Ampang at around 4.45am and reached the foot of Broga Hill at 5.30am. While walking through the Oil palm plantation we met up with the the rest of the gang and off we go, up to the peak.
The sky wasn't as nice as the week before, no sign of stars and it looked like it was going to rain anytime soon. There was lightning as well but no thunder. Despite of the weather, we started our hike. Half way through we met up with another group of forumers who was coming down from the peak. They were at the peak earlier and was worried that it would rain so they decided to leave. Chee Wah and I discussed a little and finally agreed to carry on our journey.
We were all happy to be able to finally reached the peak and even happier that no one had taken the spot I wanted for my timelapse photos. It was still dark at the peak, and with the thick rain clouds, we didn't expect to see sun rise. There were occasionally a few rain drops but we still stayed on our spot. We were lucky that it didn't rain throughout the morning. Timelapse photogray here I come! Learnt from last week's experience, this time the outcome was somehow satisfying. Jeng jeng jeng... I proudly present to you my 1st and 2nd ever succesful timelapse photography:
When the sky became brighter, our feeling became worse. The Broga Hill that we used to know was no longer there, what we saw was a piece of waste land - the lallang was burnt. We couldn't believe the scene in front of our eyes.
Just compare the 2 views from the same spot. The left was taken on 13/12/2008 and the right was taken on 26/2/2010. The changes were so significant. Broga Hill had became a popular spot but unfortunately and sadly, with more and more people stepping on this hill, tragedy like this happens. It was truly a sad day. It was still "ok" the week before when we came over although it was already bad compared to a year ago.
Later only we found the suspected "culprit" behind this incident - fireworks. Though we're not very sure but we still highly suspected this to be the cause of this incident.
These were all that were left...
We were grateful that the fire didn't burn down the all the vegetation at the hill top. I sincerely hope that to those who are reading this now, stop going to Broga Hill for a couple of months and let the vegetation grows back. If you're not a hiker, do convey this message to your friends who are. Let us all be a part to conserve the nature.
The following are some photos I took on this day and I hope you would appreciate the beauty of nature and stop destroying it.
Chee Wah and I also met a friend from high school, what a small world...
Woke up early at 3am and waited for Chee Wah to come pick me up from my house at 4am. Haven't been hiking for almost 6 months, and I always thought that I wouldn't hike at Broga Hill anymore after my last experience there - it was so crowded at the hill top and the ecology was so bad compared to the first few times I was there. Anyway, this time I decided to go because a group of people from myphotocity (www.myphotocity.com) is going over.
We reached the foot of Broga Hill at around 4.30am. Since many are still not there yet so we decided to start our hike first. 6 months of slack really did bring down my stamina a little but still it was still no issue to reach the first peak in roughly 30 mins. There were already people there, respect!
The stars in the sky shone so brightly and I was totally amazed by it. I quickly set up my tripod and thought of taking photos of star trail. This thought was quickly shot down as there are more and more people reaching the peak, which means there are more and more light source from either the torch light or flash from camera. Really not a good idea to do long exposure shot. So I just shot a regular photo of the stars in the sky.
So no star trail photos. While waiting for the sun to rise, I decided to try something that I've not tried before - light trail photography. I set up my camera with a fisheye lense, used my torchlight as light source and asked Chee Wah to push the trigger for me. This is the result:
It seems to be a failed shot. Firstly, the characters are totally mirrored. Secondly, my writing is just awful. In case that some of you would like to know what I was trying to write, I wanted to write my girlfriend's name - Valerie.
Waited till around 6.45am and we can see the sky turning bright. I quickly set up my tripod and fisheye for my main mission of the day - timelapse photography, which in the end, failed miserably after I've looked through the photos when I was back home. So no timelapse video this time but I will definitely try this again. I was taking the photos at a 30s interval from 6.45am till 7.15am, which seems to be insufficient for a timelapse video.
Since my main mission was a failure, I the changed my focus in snapping the major "landmark" of Broga Hill - the lallang. These are my shots from that day and I hope you enjoy looking at them.
Before that this is a photo of the sunrise...
And now, it's lallang time...
And some withered vegetation...
We reach the foot of the hill at around 9.30am, took a half group photo and the 20+ of us proceeded for dim sum as breakfast at Taman Connaught, Cheras.
Outdoor Adventure
