Megalong Valley - Blue Mountains, Australia

I have been trying to capture scenes like this in the Megalong Valley for many years but my old Tamron 70-300mm lens never really gave me photos that were sharp enough to be happy with. Zoomed in I could see the amazing romantic plays of light on rainy and misty days but when I got them home and had a look they would lack the clarity that I felt was needed to justify the image. What it did do was allowed me to practice the image taking and trained me on what to look for in terms of weather and the right lighting.
I've been borrowing a Canon 70-300mm of late and I've finally been able to capture some of what I had wanted too, with crisp detail and great colour!
A few days ago seemed like pretty ideal conditions with patchy rain moving through over the Oberon plateau around sunset but it was crazy windy which made standing on the cliffs pretty scary at times with it swirling around and being well over 50km/h. Not too mention it was about 3 degrees and I forgot gloves so I was doing the pocket shuffle while I waited for gaps in the clouds to allow sunlight through. There were only two short occasions where sunlight managed to get through, the rest of the time I was wondering why I was standing there with ice and rain hitting me in the face freezing my butt off BUT it was well worth it because I am stoked with this photo, I've tried capturing this composition before but as I said earlier I wasn't happy with the images. To my delight however just as I was setting up this rain storm was moving across the valley and then BOOM sunlight broke through it and I quickly grabbed my camera and zoomed in to find what I think is the perfect lighting scenario for this composition which has given me a result I had imagined many times over.
Now what to sell to afford an L-series Canon zoom lens..... xD