Photograph of the Erskine River Waterfall in Cape Otway in the background, viewed through trees, boulders and ferns in the foreground. Standing in front of the waterfall are two men who may have been the photographer's guides through the forest.    

This photograph is one of a series of 60 photographs issued c. 1876 by the photographer Nicholas John Caire (1837-1918) titled Views of Victoria: General Series.  

The label that accompanies this photograph gives a good impression of the difficult landscape that the photographer, Nicholas John Caire and his two guides had to traverse in order to take this photograph. It took them five days to cover the 6 miles to the falls and back whilst transporting all of the photographic equipment. Caire was born in Guernsey but emigrated with his parents to Adelaide in 1860. He opened a photographic studio in Adelaide in 1867.    

This is a photograph from one of the nine albums compiled following Prince Albert Victor (1864-92) and Prince George of Wales' (1865-1936) world tour aboard HMS Bacchante from 1879 to 1882. The photographs were collected by their chaperon and tutor, John Neale Dalton.

The majority of the images in these albums are topographical views and architectural studies, loosely arranged according to the group’s itinerary. They include photographs of artefacts, local people and public figures, as well as portraits of the princes taken during the tour. The attempt to recreate the experience of a journey through such an assortment of images is common to many amateur travelling albums of this period. In 1886, some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced as engravings in the published accounts of the voyage, The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship Bacchante, 1879-1882.