Being a tourist around Makarora
Makarora is only an hours drive west and it's a good road these days that goes all the way to the Haast on our New Zealand's west coast, and surprisingly I don't go there often. So taking advantage of my camper truck I headed off there straight after work on Friday, and stayed at Boundary Creek almost at the head of Lake Wanaka intending to fish but...
it was very wild and windy...
The Boundary Creek camping spot is actually on an alluvial fan formed by the creek having transported gravels out into Lake Wanaka many hundreds of years ago, and it's now vegetated with species that can withstand the wind it cops from up valley by being stuck out in the lake so-to-speak, but some surprisingly delightful sheltered spots can be found out of the wind, and one has only to step several metres towards the water to be assailed...
I find it amazing how in landscape photography [or any of the photography disciplines for that matter] how a subject can look so different when viewed from multiple perspectives. This cabbage tree [or flax?] worn ragged by the wind is a good example when comparing the above and below shots...
A lone willow leaning upwind yet putting out only one branch downwind...
And up the road a bit at the Blue Pools on Sat. a tourist crosses the Makarora River...
I caught up with a friend or two at Makarora, and headed home on Sat. in the face of persisting high winds and imminent rain. Now wide awake at 5 am Sunday, for some reason I hear the rain has caught up. It seems nice to be doing this my regular Sunday blog early to the sound of it, and the lovely smell the air has as it's being washed will be great to go back to sleep too!
On a totally different vein cousin Deirdre, a keen genealogist has emailed me this photo of our great great great grandmother Sarah Grimshaw's gravestone in East Hagbourne - blowing it up I see she was laid to rest in 1848. Somehow this connects in my mind to Capt. Cook's voyage and stop-over in 1773 in Dusky Sound, and how I was so taken by that on my trip there in 2005 - it feels strange to now know of a family link going back almost as far. A reminder too of our mortality...
it was very wild and windy...
The Boundary Creek camping spot is actually on an alluvial fan formed by the creek having transported gravels out into Lake Wanaka many hundreds of years ago, and it's now vegetated with species that can withstand the wind it cops from up valley by being stuck out in the lake so-to-speak, but some surprisingly delightful sheltered spots can be found out of the wind, and one has only to step several metres towards the water to be assailed...
I find it amazing how in landscape photography [or any of the photography disciplines for that matter] how a subject can look so different when viewed from multiple perspectives. This cabbage tree [or flax?] worn ragged by the wind is a good example when comparing the above and below shots...
A lone willow leaning upwind yet putting out only one branch downwind...
And up the road a bit at the Blue Pools on Sat. a tourist crosses the Makarora River...
I caught up with a friend or two at Makarora, and headed home on Sat. in the face of persisting high winds and imminent rain. Now wide awake at 5 am Sunday, for some reason I hear the rain has caught up. It seems nice to be doing this my regular Sunday blog early to the sound of it, and the lovely smell the air has as it's being washed will be great to go back to sleep too!
On a totally different vein cousin Deirdre, a keen genealogist has emailed me this photo of our great great great grandmother Sarah Grimshaw's gravestone in East Hagbourne - blowing it up I see she was laid to rest in 1848. Somehow this connects in my mind to Capt. Cook's voyage and stop-over in 1773 in Dusky Sound, and how I was so taken by that on my trip there in 2005 - it feels strange to now know of a family link going back almost as far. A reminder too of our mortality...
Labels: Capt Cook, Dusky Sound, East Hagbourne, Grimshaw, Lake Wanaka, landscape photography, Makarora, New Zealand Landscape Photography, Wanaka
posted by Donald at
5:36 AM
2 Comments:
That countryside certainly looks wild.
Great to see Sarah Grimshaw's headstone.She would get a surprise to think that it was being looked at by relatives in New Zealand so many years on.
being a city dweller I always imagine I could not be happy in the country but your photos are amazing and remind me how much i love those landscapes and its they which bring my mortality home to me. Thanks for that
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