Dunstan Mountains sojourn

I worked for at least half of this NZ Labour Day long weekend, but on Sunday evening my good friend Roger and myself headed up to about 1200 meters on the nearby Dunstan Mountains for an overnight stay in my Land Cruiser camper truck. The theme was landscape photography - we've done these trips before and find them really fun, and also both being photographers we're tolerant of each other's time needs.

The light turned out to be flat where we camped, and so we had a little of this sort of light in the sky, but sadly nothing on the ground...




A sunrise lacking any direct light did little for me so unlike Roger, who was up and working with his wide format cameras, I slept in then took a walk while he went back to bed. I left a broad ridge and dropped into this lovely gully to descend from my high point not far from patches of snow...


It's a big landscape when given scale by my camper...


Roger has a new puppy and she's quite proud of having stalked and captured an earthworm for breakfast...


I was fascinated by this low cloud coming in, obviously preceding very nasty weather. Our 4wd track was medium steep with patches of soil that would be tricky in the wet, so I was watching this phenomena with more than a passing interest knowing the only way home was down...


The only panorama shot I was happy with - like I said with flat light, to my mind we really only practised...


Once down from the tricky heights and just before the front caught us, we checked out an old gold mine I know of nearby...


Below the mine shaft there is a restored stamper battery...


While Roger made lots of photos I explored, and during such times in these places I ponder what it would have been like sans shade and shelter from the wind such as this apple tree now provides...


Of course there is lots of water right now in spring to help the sluicing for gold, but what must the scene have looked like without these recent willows, and what would the sounds have been like of people madly working to process as much rock as possible before summer arrived and the little streams became almost dry. Of course in winter in such shady places they'd be frozen. Central Otago is a land of extremes!


Returning I made this photo of Roger working, literally just catching his eye with only seconds of warning - anticipation is one of the keys to an interesting portrait...


Lastly just as the rain started, giving this Californian poppy no chance to open for business we just had to stop again as the colour is compelling, and with a backdrop of the Lindis Valley, one more picture had to be made...


Roger's photography website ... more>>

Bits and pieces: Clutha River, crosses, Cardrona, and the horror of removing your own leg to live

I've blogged a few times on the recent revival of plans to dam the Clutha River, and it's nice to see I'm not alone:

The new Clutha River Forum, sent a press release to the media on Friday 16th October. They have considered Contact Energy’s four dam options, and unanimously support "Option five – no more dams" ...more>>


My son and friends like to do what kids like to do, and have done for generations: float down the Clutha...


On my last post on the Clutha a couple of weeks ago I posted photos of an unusual cliff Dougal and I came across. According to my good friend Ian who used to work as a scientist on the mountain building processes in New Zealand, this is layer after layer of glacial silt, much of it deposited by wind, then modified by the ebb and flow of the glacier's terminal and lateral moraines, and weathering, but as it's densely packed it's resisted this quite well - the scolloped areas indicating less dense packing...


During the week I had cause to make some photos of a local Wanaka church to illustrate the invitations to a friend's wedding next year. Although they cannot all be seen here I was intrigued by the number of crosses [4 at least] adorning the structure's roof and how light and shadow add some more...


This weekend has not been blest with good weather, but sniffing a clearance at noon today Dougal and I headed to the top of the Crown Range road to go exploring to the east.

Dougal looks down the Cardrona Valley...


A substantial ancient landslip [dead center of photo]...


With amazing speed a snow storm came in...


...and then it cleared again for the rest of our descent down an easy road...


And lastly dear readers if you're feeling hard done-by with life and maybe things like the recent increases to our NZ ACC fees, or whatever, we can get some perspective [thanks to Bob McKerrow's blog] on life by reading how Ramlan had to saw his own leg off ...more>>

The start of summer trips

Hopes of getting away for an overnight tramp with my son did not eventuate in the last week. Maybe it was just as well too, as on one 3/4 day trip we experienced very windy conditions at the relatively low altitude of nearby Lake Hawea, where we did quite a bit of exploring.

The spectacular private road to Dingleburn Station...


I'm not sure when this road got built, but it was relatively recently and Ian S. the station owner apparently became a bit of legend in the doing of it. In his later years my dad and uncle spent a lot of time with Sarge over on the Coast, after my mum and aunt passed away within 3 months of each other back in the seventies...


I'm quite a fan of making photographs of our native Cabbage trees. This one has been through a fire though...


Dougal admires the view...


I had no idea Mt Aspiring could be seen from this area...


I've never seen a quail hang out in/on bracken fern before either...


Over the weekend one of my close friends Ian flew down from Wellington for a overnighter with me in my camper truck. I met him in Queenstown and we visited a few mutual friends then adjourned to nearby Moke Lake, and did a moderate walk in this area reeking in gold mining history.

Towards Moonlight and Ben Lomond Station...


Looking back towards Moke Lake

And lastly dawn this morning - a smaller lake nearby...


This week's site, The Green Children's Blog. A lot to look through, but inspiring.. more>>

More Clutha River meanderings, this time with a flavour of gold mining history

After an unsettled but mild beginning to spring, this weekend, both mornings when waking we found it snowing outside. Conducive then to being indoors, Dougal and I decided on some exercise this Sunday afternoon when there was some sun, so headed off again to explore the Clutha River, determined to make a competent job of landscape photography to publish here to draw attention to ill conceived ideas quietly being published by the spin doctors telling us we need more dams on this world heritage class river!

In the vicinity of Reko's Point again...


Drift fishing by raft - this was maybe my friend Lewis who runs an Eco Rafting operation on the river, but the wind did not enable him to hear my greeting from atop a rather large cliff...


Thumbing our noses at tracks, up the bank we travelled noting the recently established Didymo is slippery stuff to walk on when it's exposed...


This forced us into some scrub bashing, which in turn forced us to travel under this very interesting cliff, until we could turn the upstream end and gain a broad terrace to pick up the track home...








On turning the upstream end of the band of unusual sedimentary layering, we're still very puzzled as to the purpose of this small and strongly constructed wall right on the very end of it. Behind Dougal there were many gold working tailings, and surprisingly they'd piled the rocks right on the very edge of the aforementioned cliff - little did we realise while traveling below that this had been done, and I still can't understand why they did not just toss them off, and if they had we'd have noticed the extra complexity they would have added to our scrambling...


On higher ground again we found the travel easier as the soil and pene-plain rocks don't encourage vegetation...


On these wandering, as opposed to having kayaked this river many years ago, I'm starting to realise that to understand it's place in the environment we have to walk and explore the banks and look at it in the bigger picture of the landscape. In this instance in relation to the end view of the Pisa Range...


... and also in the context of the huge areas neighbouring the river where native vegetation and bird life, native and otherwise, flourishes. I was relived we were on our short little ridge/terrace which allowed us to have a semi "high" route through this rich and densely growing Kanuka, and Matagouri etc...


This week's link to a newsworthy blog puts the very essence of life in perspective: Bob Mc Kerrow's DEATH, DESTRUCTION AND HOPE IN SUMATRA EARTHQUAKE.

Keep up the good work Bob, take care and know our thoughts and prayers are with you and those caught up in this tragedy.