Reflections & Ice- Wairepo Arm

Catch-up

While David fished the canal, I caught up on blogs & photo processing and waited patiently over three or four days for the cloud to lift and the wind to drop, and if at all possible, both together. I wanted to capture some early winter reflections around the two small lakes; Wairepo Arm & Kelland Pond, which are attached to the Ohau B canal, which in turn flows out of Lake Ruataniwha. 

A couple of times I was out the door and about to jump in the ute when the slightest breeze would blow in, ruffle the water and spoil the still waters for the rest of the afternoon. Eventually I timed it right, I had to drive down the canal to the power station and cross over and then back up the other side of the canal from where we were parked at the NZMCA Camp.

The last time I drove around this way the gate was locked, blocking access around the ponds from the canal end. I could have come in at the south end of the pond from the main road but the mud was thick on the ground. This time the gate was open and there was good access right along the edge of the water. 

It's the small shallow coves like the ones above that offer great reflection opportunities, any breeze takes it's time reaching into these narrow fingers. Don't forget to click on the photos to view them in detail.

The bare and colourful branches of the various willows, birches and poplars make ideal subjects. 

I stopped numerous times to walk out to the the tips of the coves, often through spongy boggy patches where the water had seeped under the lake edge. I checked in all directions for suitable subjects; this one is looking back towards the canal and into the sun.

And in this one (not a reflection) you can see us parked on the canal edge, just behind the salmon farm. The ponds are a great wildlife refuge and we've often walked around them looking for grebes and coots. Today the swans, ducks and scaups are milling about in the centre not too sure what the person is up to that keeps popping up behind trees along the edge. It's the middle of duck-shooting season so they have reason to worry even though the ponds are a safe haven for them.

Looking across the main pond of Wairepo Arm as a light breeze ruffles the water, disturbing any reflections from this vantage point but making a lovely panoramic capture.

I drove around the lake until I reached the main road, the wind had settled again and from two or three viewpoints along the side of the road, the reflections are magnificent.

While I'm taking photos a big flash black car with smoky windows pulls up beside the ute and out hops two puffer jacketed, beanie & scarf wearing guys and one Asian bride (sans groom) in a thin slinky white strapless number.

They clamber down to the water and her photographer poses her on the edge with these reflections behind. The other guy fiddles with photography gear. She will be freezing her butt off, don't let the blue sky and sunshine fool you, it is freezing cold, around 4-5c. 

They take numerous shots and then climb back up the bank, into the car and off. Because there was no groom, I'm thinking she was a model and they might have been doing a photoshoot for advertising. 

New Zealand is a top destination for Asian weddings, wedding photo shoots, second ceremonies and honeymoons. We must have seen a couple of dozen couples in various locations on our travels. And after all that build-up (see how I filled in the gaps between photos), no I didn't take a photo of her. I was too busy doing my own shots before the breeze returned.

The evergreen pines behind these bare willows make a lovely contrast.

And here they are in a pano shot.

I crossed over the road to Kelland Pond, just as the breeze returned, you can see it heading up the lake from the south.

And here it is just about to destroy my reflection.

It didn't matter, I had found a new subject. Tucked along the edge and in the shadow of the bare trees all day, ice had formed amongst the reeds.

Beautiful ice formations that were slowly melting leaving thin ice bridges that formed stars between the reeds. What was more interesting was the fact that the ice actually sat about 2-3 inches above the water level. The hydro canals rise and fall quite a lot over a day and sometimes even over a few hours. And so do the ponds as they are fed by the canal, the ice would have formed on a 'high tide'.

Many people pass through the MacKenzie Basin on their way to somewhere else and comment that it's a dry and barren landscape devoid of interest. They don't know what they're missing.

Salmon & Cows- MacKenzie Country

Catch-up- Once again I'm getting behind with my blog posts. We're on the road at the moment exploring the Canterbury high country while filling in a couple of weeks before we need to be back in Christchurch for an appointment. Very soon we'll be in one place for more than a week or two and I'll be able to prioritise catching up on blogs, so hang in there, I won't miss any. And I have lots of exciting places that we've been to share!

You'll recall we left Ohau C Campground after 60 hours of thick fog and on the morning the sun finally came out. We didn't move very far, just up the canal to our old familiar Ohau B NZMCA campsite. David still had a salmon to catch.

5th-wheelers rule!

We were treated to some spectacular sunrises (and a few very heavy frosts)...

...and some mind blowing sunsets. 

David fished on and on, freezing his butt off along with his toes and fingertips, and not enjoying it as much as he has in the past. He was determined to catch a salmon though and he must have cried a little too hard on a fellow fisherman's shoulder because before too long, he came home with a nice sized pannie. Thanks Murray! 

It's that time of the year when the weather is very fickle, several weather fronts swept through while we were there, this one arrived and departed with such speed it was hard to believe.

The photo below was taken just one hour after the one above. Hard to imagine isn't it?

The front approached from the south just as I headed over to the bridge to see what all the commotion I could hear was about- shouting, banging, barking, tooting and motorbikes revving. A herd of cows were being pushed onto the bridge but were very reluctant to cross. They'd come from the huge dairy farm on the right at the rear of the photo.

Once across the canal bridge, they strung out as they made their way to the spillway bridge. You can see the weather front heading north here...

...and just after this shot I made a dash for home as the heavens opened up and a massive downpour caused a quite a bit of surface flooding. 

Later that day I heard the same commotion...

...not once but twice more...

...and twice the next day too. One herd decided they were not going to cross, the lead cows balking and fussing about at the entrance but they could not be bullied into crossing. In the end, with traffic building up, the farmhands had to take them back down the farm track and regroup them before pushing them forward again, with different cows in the lead no doubt.

In all, five dairy herds of a similar size crossed the bridges on their way to pastures new. I managed to speak to one of the workers and she told me that they were moving them to their winter feeding ground, not far past Twizel and east, somewhere between the Pukaki River and the main road.

If you're a long time reader of my blog you may remember a post from late May, 2015 about Gypsy Day. Gypsy Day being the day sharemilkers shift their herds to their new farms. Well, I'm thinking that it wasn't in fact Gypsy Day then, it was this same farm shifting it's herds to their winter paddocks. 

 And all the while as the cows rumbled their way over the bridge, the fisher people below fished on...

...and finally David caught not one but two salmon, two reasonably sized fish. We offered Murray one of them to replace the one he gave us but he said he was sure to catch some more (I hope so otherwise he might have been sleeping under his van and not in it). So in the end we had three fish and the curse has finally been broken. Now, if only he could catch one of those monsters....

The sun sets on another fantastic time in the MacKenzie.

Fog at Benmore

Catch-up

Our next stop after leaving the amazing Ahuriri Valley was back to a familiar camp site, Ohau C Campground on the shores of Lake Benmore, near Twizel in the MacKenzie Country. You'll remember we stayed there in early December last year and had a great time. 

David was keen to stop for a few days, get the boat out and catch some trout- lake fishing from his Takacat has become his first love when it comes to fishing. He hadn't had much of a chance to put the boat up over summer so he was looking forward to a few days fishing. And seeing trout swimming past the van in the shallows, it looked like he was going to be in luck!  

We were the only ones there the first night, without the facilities of summer it costs just $10 a night per van. The camp was now back to it's natural self, all the semi-permanent caravans and various added extras brought in by the regulars over summer had been cleared out. It was just us and nature.

This photo was taken back in May 2015 just after a light snowfall, so far there's been no snow this year (although as I type, snow is falling heavily in the MacKenzie Country).

As the sun set on our first night, the mist swirled and rose over the lake and the willows turned a beautiful gold colour...

...the sky changed to a dusky pink as the full moon rose above us. Picture perfect!

That was until we awoke in the morning to a heavy frost, a total white-out and a freezing cold temperature.

David had put the boat up the previous afternoon so it was ready to go. 'Oh well', we thought, 'not to worry, the fog will likely lift by the afternoon'. David headed out onto the lake and was swallowed up in the mist within seconds. We'd discussed that he'd stick to the edges or head down the canal to the power station so he'd be able to find his way home. 

Afternoon came and went, the fog swirled and hinted at lifting only to then descend even thicker than before. I did manage to spy the sun though. Just as it was setting.

Maybe tomorrow we'd see the sun...

Tomorrow arrived looking very much the same. It didn't come without it's drama either. I opened the door, camera in one hand, door handle in the other and stepped outside, promptly ending up in a heap on the mat; black ice on the steps- bump, bump, bump- as I hit each one on the way down. Luckily there was a soft mat over the mud at the bottom. Although I still did some damage- a badly bruised hip and an elbow and a head that hit something sharp on the way down. David thought a herd of elephants was passing through! 

It was funny (in a peculiar way, not a haha way...well actually it was probably both) but as I went to put my foot down, I saw the beautiful shiny black step in front of me and it registered that it was a ice covering but I just couldn't send the message to my foot quick enough.

David went fishing again, it was real pea souper. He got a little too far out into the lake at one point and completely lost the shore line and all sense of direction. Luckily he had a navigation app on his phone that directed him back into sight. 

I'd had enough of the fog by mid afternoon so after checking on a couple of live cams near Twizel and seeing that there were a few blue patches appearing, I headed out to the main road 12kms away. The NZMCA Ohau B camp site was thick in fog too, although it looked to be lifting a little.

I carried on down past Lake Ruataniwha and along the back road until I reached the Ohau A and Pukaki Canal and clear air! Well nearly clear air; the blue mist along the mountain base is smoke from a burnoff somewhere. On well, it has to be better than fog. 

I crossed over Pukaki Canal, stopping on the bridge to take a photo down the middle of the canal (this shot has been brightened a bit, I like it's dreamy appearance). I headed down the gravel road back towards the main highway. I wanted to check the Black Stilt ponds, I wasn't expecting to find any, just checking to make sure though. Not a bird in sight. All the ponds were frozen. 

From my vantage point up on the canal road I could see a thick blanket of grey fog laying across the MacKenzie basin from Tekapo right down to Lake Benmore and up towards Twizel. I headed back along the highway towards Twizel (bottom left) and straight back into the cold clammy dense fog. It's so depressing when you've just left brilliant blue skies and sunshine behind.

It was quite spooky driving down the canal road; the fog was so thick and I could only just see my edge of the canal. I don't know why, but that weird sensation of thinking you're going to drive over the edge kept coming over me. I slowed right down and took my time. Several parked cars and ghostly white figures loomed out of gloom; fisher people as mad as David! You have got to be keen.

I stopped beside the power station to take a photo of the penstocks to add to my penstock 'collection'- sun, snow and now I have fog.

I drove to the end of the top road above the boat ramp and camp to take a photo of the van parked on the edge of the lake across the water; a comparison shot. You can just see the white from top of the van in the centre of this shot if you look real hard! (click photo to enlarge)

And this is what you should be seeing, minus the leaves of course! We're parked in the same spot only horizontal to the lake this time. (And that is Aoraki/Mt Cook in the background, top left)

I heard some people talking below me; and spotted a boat heading back to the ramp. That's a bit scary because you just can't see a thing on the lake, I hope David was sticking to the edge of the lake although I doubt anyone was travelling very fast through the fog.

When I got back home, David was back from fishing too and busy dismantling the boat. He'd had enough of the fog, the icy cold, the dampness, and no fish since the first day. He was packing up so we could get out of there first thing in the morning; 60 hours of fog was just too much and testing his resolve.

That night the temperature dropped sharply again, the outside gauge said -3c at 9pm and when I checked outside, ice was forming along the van, over the ute and on the steps (mental note to watch those in the morning). Then at 11pm, without rhyme nor reason, a 'heatwave' passed through and the temperature rose just as sharply. The gauge now read 11c, a 14c gain in little over a couple of hours. It was really weird. 

Murphy's Law decided he'd had enough of the fog too and we woke to a beautifully calm and clear day with no boat to go fishing! David toyed with the idea of putting it back up again but it takes him about 3 hours to assemble the Takacat and all the paraphernalia that goes with it and he just decided he'd had enough. It doesn't help that he's so meticulous with everything and it was all neatly packed away in the many hatches and compartments he stores them in. 

We hitched up and headed out. From the sublime of the Ahuriri Valley to the ridiculous fog at Benmore, we'd been brought back to earth with a thump.