Day3: Wednesday

Woken by the gentle scraping of the metal brackets on the shade sails outside at 3am; the day begun much earlier than it needed to. It did allow time for a relaxing coffee, check the bank account & see what the email works had for me. Delete. Delete. Delete. I also tried to find the monoMonday & wildWednesday hosts to see what the themes were but to no avail.

5am departure for the 75min trip down to Nuggets Lighthouse in the Catlin region. A lesser known area of New Zealand, it is home to some very rugged coastline & lots farming. Cows milking, sheep moving paddocks & fences being reinforced all before breakfast.

The lighthouse was a stout building (think R2D2) atop the jagged peak that overlooks The Nuggets - a large boulderous outcrop off the coastline & home to quite a few. List birds & sea lions who spent the morning talking loudly amongst themselves. Under the umbrella in the wet weather gear; I was dry, the camera was not. I tolerated this for a little while before calling it quits & hiked the 1km back to the bus. Next stop: a waterfall. Oh the irony.

With the potential of getting into the waterfall, I opted in for bare feet again after being assure the path was suitable. It wasn't. But had I put some rational thought into it; the amount of rain already fallen, would have indicated that getting in wasn't going to be an option. Oh well, lesson learned. Shot from 3 spots (monochrome) before returning to the bus.

By now it was close to 11am & we headed for breakfast at the Green Frog. A great little cafe/pub serving very excellent food & coffee. Dry feet, shoes on & off we went for the other waterfall.

Still raining, we walked the km or so into McLean Falls. Several smaller cascades before you get to the lower falls. Most opted for this location, waiting their turn to stand in the same spot to take the same photo. I kept heading up to the upper falls (The Chute) & climbed down onto the lower shelf to capture the 2 drops. Some BnW, a few colour and the iPhone shots were a struggle due to the rain & the spray. Headed down to find most had left the lower section, so I took a couple of quick ones, not wanting to de-shoe again.

Hearing back to the bus I stopped a few times & probably got 2 of my favs so far this trip. Trying to master soft focus water, vivid colours & a focus less image.

Lunch cancelled (breakfast was only 2hrs earlier) we started the 3.5hr trip across the Island to Te Anau.

Hotel check in (great view of the lake). Dry socks & we headed out to the jetty for sunset. A dismal show of colour from our location (my sunsets are the opposite to beach given you wait a bit longer & the great colours appear behind you). Stayed a little longer & played with some monotone images.

Dinner & dessert, before changing back into the warm clothes & headed out for some night photos. 3 others joined in my crazy idea (it was already 9pm & we had to be on the bus at 6am).

Some key setting advice & a brief lesson on bulb resulted in all of us getting some really good images. A mix between over exposed, environmental lighting, the jetty, creek & a few boats gave us a good variety of shooting options. Finally fell into bed a little before 1am.

PS: map is a guess - will have to endeavour to work out where it was