This is the best one we’ve had to date, I’m sure they’ll be plenty more to come though :)
Sunset at Waikahoa Bay
Some great views here gazing over the sea as the sun went down eating our instant pasta dinner. But it tasted good :)
Just found out that with the cameras aperture set to minimum seems to make the sun look like a star, cool :)Sunrise over Awanue Rock at Ocean Beach
This is one morning I wish I’d gotten up early for! Amazing shots here Cookie! The scene looked stunning enough the evening before, but this is something else. Note to self: Must get up earlier!Woke up this morning and stuck my head out the tent to see the whole sky lit up red with this sunrise. Quickly grabbed my camera and tripod, bare feet scrambling over rocks, then legged it down the beach just in time to get these shots.
Trying to do that blurry water thing, wishing I had a ND filter on me to increase the exposure time..
Here’s another sunrise pic, couldn’t choose between them:
Sun Setting Through the Long Grass
I think we might actually have got some tanning in today. After a long wait for all the boy racers to come and go, a few bunches of kids come and jump around and scream in the river for a bit, and numerous cars come, park up for a bit and go. We begin to realise we’ve essentially decided to sleep in a 24hr car park :)
Sun goes down, the cloud of bugs clear away, we set to sleep. And I have crazy nightmares about people slashing through the tent with knives. Awesome! :) Was pretty keen to get going in the morning and get up these mountains!
This makes it look more idyllic than it actually was.. Not 100% sure what rules are about camping in these ‘reserves’, there’s a whole load of badges of things you can or can’t do on the sign, but no mention of camping, we assumed it was ok?
Camping at Gladstone Reserve:
Sunset at Pukerua Bay from Stealth Camp
Very rarely do we pop up in a town and realise there’s no where to stay. In fact this was the first time. We’d hoped for a campsite, or a stealthy patch of grass, but the google maps didn’t look promising. And the B&B was shut. This called for a Stealth Camp! This was going to be tricky. Right by the motorway, over looked essentially. Houses dotted along the path like guard turrets… Finally we found a little corner to hide away in. Set up the tent, had a glass of wine and dozed off to the sunsetting. Phew!
Busy road walk from Paekakariki brought us to a patch of grass by a little waterfall just outside Pukerua Bay. The huge fire pit with drift wood seating scattered around had ‘stealth camp’ written all over it. Strangely peaceful considering it was only few meters away from the main road out of Wellington.Slaty Peak at Sunset
High up at 1500 meters and with interesting clouds forming, I decided it was probably going to be worth the effort to scramble up to the summit of nearby Slaty Peak to take some pictures of the sunset. It definitely was.
Sunset over Mount Rintoul
Amazing sunset tonight, too many pictures to choose from as the sky was set of fire by the waning sun. Love this Mt. Doom-esque shot of Mt. Rintoul which makes tomorrows climb up it feel like a Lord of the Rings type endeavor..
Dawn at Top Forks Hut
Well I can’t claim to be a dawn riser, but luckily I have a Cookie with me who can’t resist a colour changing mountain! :) So I generally get to peruse the awesome photos over breakfast instead ;) Lovely!
We ended up staying at this hut 3 nights in a row, might even be the longest we’ve ever stayed in one place over the past 5 months! Well we didn’t exactly stay still, we kept on venturing out in different directions, but it was interesting to see the different characters come and go. Definitely has the best view of any hut we’ve stayed at before!
