A wedding

My good friend and fellow landscape photographer Roger married Kara yesterday here in Wanaka. As groomsman part of my task was to make sure his camera and tripod ended up in the right places, such as the final staged photo shoot up on Mt Roy [via heli] in the evening, but I had enough free time to follow the event and the official photographer with my own camera.

We went to the standard wedding photo locations first, and I must say they do provide memorable settings...


Roger's mum, a very special person to me, came out from the UK . It was lovely to see her again, and she was one of the first in the church - a very top day for her especially...


Plans of a musical nature are hatched pre ceremony...


Anna the official photographer readies Roger's nephew Chris [US], for a photo...


As nearly all parties in the ceremony are professionals in the medical world, an ambulance was used at one stage to ferry us to the photo shoot locations. Roger's sense of humour is obviously alive and well...


Roger and Kara's dog Mylie was a bit of star, but all became serendipitous when another wedding arrived at one of the locations, and then a family out walking arrived, and all had the same breed...


I wish them well in their commitment of love...


Thanks Roger and Kara, and families, for a most memorable and fun day

PS See Roger's landscape photography work here

PS 2 Mon. 19th Apr: it seems this blog is now being used by family in the UK etc. so here are a whole bunch of extra photos:

A celebration of our wild New Zealand landscape and National Parks - and a "heads up"

Quentin Smith of Wanaka has recently formed a FaceBook group: Hands off Mt Aspiring NP and a few days ago membership stood at 5000, and it's now well over 6000!

... which relates to the noises our new, seemingly unenlightened and uninspired, New Zealand Government are making to initiate mining investigations in our National Parks. Not only my local Mt Aspiring National Park I might add!

While they say it's only a stock-take even that is a transgression and impossible to do without major disturbances and destruction of our heritage put aside for all coming generations.

Having got this off my chest [link below] I'm here sharing some of my favourite landscape photos I've made of our wild New Zealand landscape.

This is Mt Brewster - somewhat in the middle of the area of Mt Aspiring National Park our National Government has it's beady eyes on [and in bed with which multi national corporation that historically is always in the background taking profits when it comes to mining resources in any country?]...


Marks Flat under Mt Hooker - a huge tract of land designated at Conservation Estate in South Westland. Should it be part of the World Heritage Site in this area [Te Wahipounamu - South West New Zealand]?


You can "mine" great powder on the slopes of Mt Cook in Mount Cook National Park...


Alma hut in Westland National Park, with Franz Josef neve behind...


Mt Aspiring from Cascade Saddle


Lake Hankinson in Fiordland National Park [not far from the Milford Track]...


Looking down one of the significant glaciers in Westland National Park


There is a FaceBook generated link here, to view, or I suggest join the group: Hands off Mt Aspiring NP.

Or failing above then click on Groups in your FaceBook account and type in "Hands off Mt Aspiring NP"

And on a related matter this week I found out that New Zealand has 56,000 Kms of public roads that are not public, and our current New Zealand Government, and the preceding one it seems, have apparently been doing their best to sweep these "paper roads" under the carpet by use of cunning legal moves to give the land to those [many of whom have already fenced them off], in exchange for easements. The former offer us, the recreational users and owners unfettered access, the latter, easements, do absolutely nothing for us - only for self serving interests of those who've squatted on our rights.

The theme of past follies continues

For my last two posts I've visited the past - first a family internment and then about the local celebration of the first ascent of Mt Aspiring last weekend. Well the trend continues: this week gone by I attended our annual Wanaka Search and Rescue helicopter training. While it's tempted me to write about adventures around helicopters and rescues that went well or not-so-well, a friend has recently lent me his new colour slide scanner so I've gone intensely for scanning hundreds of my landscape photography collection which goes back 40 years or more. It can do about 40 an hour, which is a lot better than my one at 8/hr. So dear readers, I've been so delighted with the results I've decided to share some of my favourite images from what seems like a past life:

Bluffs and rainbow on Mt Hooker taken from Marks Flat in South Westland. In fact I spent a week looking at this hillside while living under a nice rock riding out a nor wester once. Rocks are very peaceful things to live under as soon as I get over thinking about earthquakes, but none-the-less it was really nice to see this little reminder of sunshine...


Market gardens in North Otago...


Mt Hooker - waterfall...


Bush with light-shafts in seaward Kaikouras...


Sunset on an Otago beach...


And to finish on something not 30 years old, the new Squirrel coming in carefully for our recent Search and Rescue practice...


Not a good situation in which to contemplate walking uphill away from the helicopter!

A big day on the road visiting the past

The weekend just past I'd set aside to attend the raising of a memorial plaque in Kurow cemetery for my aunt and uncle who passed away a few years back. This involved motoring over the Lindis Pass to the Waitaki Valley and MacKenzie Country to meet with family. North Otago was where I primarily grew up, while my aunt Pat and uncle Jim worked and lived on the remote and very large Otematata Station for about 44 years.

Jim and Pat's new memorial mounted on some greywacke...


Across the aisle is great granddad Silas...


I was a bit late for the ceremony, but it suited my mindset to be alone, and so after reclining on the grass by the memorial and watering the poppies left at the graveside, I wandered about the other graves looking at the history - goodness even discovering folk I knew younger than myself are in residence! I quite liked the cultural difference of this memorial though, but some fresh and cool beers would be a nice touch....


Next I adjourned for lunch to the nearby Awakino Ski Field access road. These modest mountains, The St. Marys Range are where I cut my teeth in winter learning the art of looking after myself in the New Zealand mountains...


Away back in what seems like another age an older ski club member showed me some hidden graves of two very young children near the ski field access road, so in lieu of some exercise in worsening weather I looked for them and found to my delight that [presumably] the local farmer has tidied them up and planted roses. There is an enclosure each for the two little souls...


Grave of the two yr. old Emma Barrett who passed on in 1872...


Grave of 8 day old Jennett Robbie - also 1872...


Looking down the Awakino river to the Kirkliston Range in the Hakataramea Valley...


On the road again in changing weather - it went from gale-force nor west and about 33 Celsius, to sth east gale-force again, with a drop in temperature of about 15 degrees in an hour...


On the way back to Twizel to regain the company of my family I detoured a little to check out Benmore Dam. I found the visit quite thought provoking given the thinking behind my recent posts on the folly of building more dams on the Clutha River. I was just a kid when this monster was built. Many people don't realise too that it flooded an amazing white water gorge that few people have seen [myself only photographs], that was apparently unique in New Zealand and even more so in world terms...


Next I detoured again to Lake Ohau which is another one of my favourite childhood haunts [caught my largest trout there ever], and in my 20s and 30s the larger area became the focus of much tramping, mt.eering and powder skiing...


The end of a stock fence in Lake Ohau, and the block of mountains in the middle background is the Glenmary Range. The main peak Glenmary is about 8000 ft. and to the right slightly is the incredibly hard-to-reach Glenmary Glacier. I've had a lot of fun in them tha hills...


... and another fence near the Lake Ohau access road...


Many years ago I lived in Twizel for awhile and shifted this house onto two large sections. Apart from many years doing part time renovation on the house I planted about a hundred trees and put them on a trickle irrigation system. It paid off - although the house is long sold and I do miss it a lot, the trees give me great joy...

On another topic some of you may recall a post or two back in Jan. this year about searching for missing tramper Irina Yun on Cascade Saddle in my current near-to-home Mount Aspiring National Park. Well a few days ago her remains were at last found, and fellow blogger and mountaineer Bob McKerrow has done a very good post on the story, which incidentally I think will help her family grieve. Well done Bob... more>>

Lastly, it's been my trend of late to use this place to draw attention to issues I don't agree with such as the damming of the Clutha River, and the Project Hayes Wind Farm [my grounds are simple - blatant use of our unique landscapes at the expense of our own wilderness values and those of our children]. So speaking of children you should read what fellow blogger Marg has written lower down on her weekly post about what our uninspired New Zealand Government is doing to New Zealand early childhood education... more>>