For the last few months I’ve been driving plenty of back roads in rural Tararua District. This isn’t really on anyone’s tourist trail in New Zealand. This is simply farming country. Much of the time, you’re on these roads by yourself, or accompanied by livestock. Often the roads are unsealed. This is real New Zealand. This is the country we love. This is the stuff we pass every day on our way somewhere. Get off the beaten track and go and visit New Zealand, not just the touristy stuff.
Horsemen from Waewaepa Station with a large team of dogs droving cattle on the Waitahora Road, heading towards Coonoor. Tararua District.That gap is where Towai Road, crosses the top of the Puektoi Ranges. Tararua District.Heading East down Towai Road towards the Waihi Valley. Tararua District.Looking East from the side of Towai Road win a Southerly Gale. Tararua District.Awesome colours as I’m looking North towards the Puketoi Range from Pori Road, heading East towards Route 52. Tararua District.Huia Road, winds towards the Three Kings, just off Route 52, near Pongaroa. Tararua District.Looking West down Maunga Road, Near Dannevirke. Tararua District.Sheep in the yards beside Weber Road, near Dannevirke, Tararua District.The Bluff on Mangahei Road. Looking West. Mangahei, Tararua District.Looking East across Mangaorapa Station, from Te Uri Road, Near Porangahau. Central Hawkes Bay district.Cattle grazing with the Ruahine Ranges in the near distance. beside SH2, Norsewood. Tararua District.Weather on the Ruahine Foothills. Otanga Road, near Dannevirke, Tararua District.Ormondville Railway Station. Ormondville. Tararua District.Trees peeking through the low cloud. Looking East from the Saddle Road. Near Woodville. Tararua District.Grounds Staff? Mangatainoka Rugby Club. Beside SH2, Eketahuna. Tararua District.Sunrays on the way East over the Saddle Road, near Ashurst. Manawatu.I actually can’t remember where I took this. Tararua District.Autumnal colours from Pohangina Valley Road. ManawatuSale of dairy cattle at Matamau Sale Yards. Tararua District.That’s actually someone’s driveway. Near Akitio. Tararua District.
The Akitio Coast
I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of the landscapes I love so much. We have much amazing countryside, off the beaten track. Those country roads are my home.
I’ve got a new thing, I found this cool App for my iPad which allows me to covert photos to Black and White then colour in certain parts, back to the original colour. Like a sort of Art Photo thing. What do you reckon?
We decided to take advantage of some cheap flights to the South Island and have a wee roadie. Just four days. This is the sort of thing you can see on a short road trip in New Zealand.
Four easy days driving in the Central South Island. Christchurch, over Arthurs Pass to the West Coast. Night near Hokitika. South via Franz Josef and Fox Glacier, night at Fox for the Lake Matheson early morning shot. South to Haast Pass drive through Mackenzie Country for a night at Twizel. Aoraki/Mt Cook national park is only a short drive from Twizel. On to Geraldine for a night then easy drive to Christchurch and home. Basically this is a reasonably low cost long weekend away. Thursday through to Monday. We are very lucky to live here in New Zealand. Lucky As!
Heading for Arthurs Pass
Arthurs Pass
Lake Matheson
Probably the best morning conditions ever at Lake Matheson.
Okarito Lagoon
Lake Moeraki
Haast Pass
Lake Wanaka
Lake Wanaka
Lake Hawea
Lake Hawea
Lake Hawea
Mackenzie Country
Aoraki/Mt Cook
Road works!
Aoraki/Mt Cook
Blue and Gold
Dementors
Bridge
Glacial Valley
Distinct lack of Glacier
Glacial Valley
Mirror
Lake Pukaki
Seriously, the weather though!
Costs? About $200 for two return flights, Palmerston North to Christchurch. Rental car was about $250, Plus about $125 per night on average, motels and AirBnB. Basically about NZD $1000 plus food and drink, Pretty good I reckon.
We got a puppy in March this year, her name is Tessa and she is an Australian Cattle Dog, otherwise known as a Blue Heeler. Some people think the Blue Heeler is an ugly dog. We beg to differ, what do you think? (Most of these are iPhone photos.)
I travel around a large chunk of New Zealand a lot, I also regularly visit other parts of New Zealand than my local bit. I’m always on the lookout for something pleasing to Photograph as hopefully these pages will show. I trust you are enjoying the images so far.
However…On my travels, I see other stuff, the other New Zealand. The bits you don’t read about in the guide books, or don’t think of when you typically think of our country, or maybe you do but you take it for granted. I decided to document a bit of it. I set up a new Instagram account called @kiwiay for that purpose. Come and have a look, follow the account. I’ll be, or have been posting this sort of thing.
Rustic garden art or driftwood overload
Derelict dairy factory on the surf highway in Taranaki. In New Zealand we have many derelict buildings as monuments to our inability to pull derelict buildings down. So instead we often paint a cheery or quirky mural on one or more of the walls. This shows that as well as having a lack of efficient and effective reclamation facilities, we are also arty.
It’s road works season in New Zealand. Because it’s the end of the financial year, all the councils are spending the last of their budgets on dubious road maintenance projects to ensure they can maintain their road maintenance funding next year. In NZ we don’t have modern phased mobile traffic lights at our roadworks, we still have the Stop/Go sign being held by a person. This is Paul, a Stop/Go guy
Every old warehouse wall should have black and white murals and a dragons head sticking out of the wall
We sometimes like to give amusing and trade or location associative names to our drinking establishments. Opunake on the ‘Surf Highway’ in Taranaki is known for its surfing opportunies as is the rest of the Taranaki Coast. This obviously was once simply the Opunake Hotel, but has been revitalised and rebranded the ‘Surf Inn’. I hope they didn’t pay anyone too much money to come up with that catchy title. Which reminds me I must go out to Scott’s Ferry in the Rangitikei again
Time to start chucking some fertiliser on the paddocks ay? The good old top dressing Bi-plane putting ‘super’ on the farms of NZ
Kiwis like going really fast any chance we get. We’re pretty awesome at motor sports of many kinds. This is Power Boat racing on the Manawatu river.
Old wooden viaduct above our old farm in Southern Hawkes Bay. Notice all the excellent ‘health and safety’ and harm prevention measures in place. I don’t think this rail line gets used anymore
5a is a bit farther along the track.
An aircraft from our national airline Air New Zealand making its way into one of our provincial airports. flying around New Zealand can be a bit hairy sometimes
It’s nice that young people want to put their own flavour on the relics of the 2nd World War in New Zealand. Like in these old Harbour defence Artillery Emplacement tunnels
The great New Zealand dairy. This is a fine example of this iconic establishment.
Thats a nice memorial to Nana Jacques, obviously much loved, I bet she’d be very proud.
Shutes, for when the shearing is complete
No day is complete in New Zealand without a rousing Maori haka, I think this was just a practice one though, or maybe these Wahine were saying hooray to the South Island.
Kiwis drink more coffee than just about anyone. Often served by someone who looks and dresses like a gay lumberjack
Footy is the lifeblood of New Zealand, some good mates enjoying the day.
Wonder when the next race meeting is, I believe the last one was in 1980.
Classic dairy, with updated paint job. Tip Top work. I’ve never been in that dairy.
This is the New Zealand pig, the kunekune. This is a happy one because he isn’t being made into bacon.
By back home, I mean I traded the Olympus Mirrorless camera back in for a Canon. I missed having what I feel is a proper camera. A big Digital Single Reflex Camera. I like Canons so I bought the Canon 6D MkII. Actually it’s not quite as simple as that. The 6D MkII is the camera almost made for me. It’s more clever as one of Canons best ever camera’s, the 5D mkIII. I’ve also had one of those, a second hand one which I traded in for the Olympus Camera as I thought I would enjoy the drop in camera weight. It wasn’t worth the change sadly, still, you live and learn.
I wanted my own new Canon DSLR camera though and the 6D MkII came along at the perfect time. It’s got great image quality, plenty of pixels, it does a bunch of stuff I don’t care about or understand and it has built in wifi which is awesome in so many ways. It does what it says on the tin and has delivered a number of quite fetching images already. My only issue with it is that the shutter isn’t as quiet as I’d like. I know right? That’s literally the only issue. I love this camera and I’m looking forward to getting to know it better. Herewith some imagery from my 6D MkII. It’s not all about the camera though. For those who are interested, I mostly, currently only, have a Canon 24-105 L series walking round lens on the front of my camera.
People standing in my shot, I may have asked them to.
Door, needs work
Shepherds Delight, Himatangi Beach. This is home.
St Andrews Church, Turakina.
I like this building.
KIte surfer, practicing at the new place in Foxton. It’s called ‘Off The Loop’ Cable wake boarding among other awesome adventure activities.
This is where we live now. A small beach community in Manawatu, New Zealand. Himi as I call it has a wonderful eclectic variety of proper beach baches and more conventional homes, and the largest sand dune in the Southern Hemisphere apparently.
The phrase, ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ is best applied here. Here is a collage of Himatangi Beach images. I love it here.
This is the road to my place, ok, it’s not the only road, but it is a road.
I decided to go light, I decided I was carrying around too much heavy expensive gear for someone who isn’t a professional Photographer. I wanted to try Digital Mirrorless Technology. I’m currently enjoying the light weight, little bit hipster, retro’ish Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII which is a hell of a mouthful for a camera name. I only have one multi purpose lens on the front which is an Olympus 14-150mm. I have to admit I’m not totally in love with this camera. I’m not as happy with the image quality as I had hoped I would be and I find it a bit small in my hands. It’s pretty much lacking in every department for what I want to achieve photographically. But it is light. I’ll be going back to a bigger DSLR set up when I can afford it. That said, here is a selection of images I’ve taken in the last couple of months with the little Olympus.
Waikato somewhere, early.
Cup of rosie.
Sunset, Kapiti Coast
On the way to French Pass.
That’s D’Urville Island
Remote woolshed, French Pass Road.
Kapiti
Mt Taranaki
Kiwi Rail
Lake Mangamahoe
Cape Egmont Lighthouse
Tasman Bay, Nelson
Mt Doom?
Tutukaka Coast
Morning at Kaitoke
Sunrise in the Waikato
Mirror mirror
Mouth of Queen Charlotte Sound.
Tutukaka
Flax
Wellington Harbour
I don’t think it’s just a case of a poor workman blaming his tools, maybe it is though. I still want to go back to a full size DSLR, or mirrorless. This nice little camera is just too little for me.
I’m not even going to pad this out with words, well not many words. If you come here a bit you’ll know I spend a lot of time on the road. I’m lucky that I live in New Zealand which is the worlds greatest road trip. People travel from all over the world to see this stuff and I just have to leave the house. These images are some that I have captured since my previous Dolphins post, which was just over a month ago. As far as a travel experience goes, it’s truly epic out there in New Zealand. I almost couldn’t believe I’d covered this much territory in under a month. I should get out more…
Near Pipiriki, Whanganui Region.
Raetihi, Central Plateau
Ratana Church, Raetihi, Central Plateau
Waitonga Falls Walkway, Mt Ruapehu, Central Plateau.
Sunrise near Raetihi, Mt Ruapehu, Central Plateau
Otago Harbour
Eglignton Valley, Fiordland National Park
Portobello, Otago Peninsula
Lake Benmore, Mackenzie Country. Canterbury
Mackenzie Country, Canterbury
Lake Pukaki and the Southern Alps, Mackenzie Country.
Taiaroa Head, Otago.
Te Anau, Southland
Nelson Marina, Nelson.
Pelorus Sound from Queen Charlotte Drive, Marlborough Sounds.
Mount Taranaki from Lake Mangamahoe, New Plymouth, Taranaki.
The Pub in my local village. End of the trip. That’s not my car though.
Sandy's Views - Photography 