The Fire

I first noticed it when I was packing up my car to head to the recycle centre earlier this year. I raced in and got my camera. This first shot was taken from my driveway...

Apparently it was a burnoff, and every year they do this. This one I think got a bit out of control. I'm not totally sure of this, but there were helicopters overhead, and the fire raced up that hillside pretty quickly.

I carried on, went to an appointment, recycled my rubbish, headed into town to the library, and on the way home I noticed it was still going strong, so decided to go closer and investigate it further with my camera. At this stage, I didn't know Blenheim that well, so I just headed off into the direction of the fire. Found some new country roads I didn't know about...

This was taken from some road somewhere. I was pretty lost by now!! The smoke was casting quite a yellow glow, so the lighting was really weird. The sun was having trouble shining through it, it was so thick. I kept going and eventually found a road that seemed to take me straight there...

As you can see the light on the hills and river had a yellow tone, although I think this made image much more appealing. Looking up the other way, (east), you can see the smoke wasn't making much of an impact. This is the Wairau River..

Very pretty river, and love the riverstones. That's the one thing I love about the South Island is all the stones by the rivers.

Here is the area again, back to where my car was parked, again the yellow hue from the sun trying to get through the smoke.

Naturally, I take photos from all angles, to ensure I get at least one brilliant shot!

This was on top of the stop-bank of the river, looking southwest to the wither hills and down the Wairau Valley. The clouds aren't clouds, but smoke. Again, there was a slight yellow hue, although not as pronounced as the previous images.

I packed up then and headed home via Rapaura Road. It was quite late in the afternoon so stopped to take a photo of the old mud hut. Not only was it late afternoon, but the smoke was affecting the hue as well, which made it a good time to take the photo...

I must find out more about this hut - there's bound to be some interesting history attached to the old mud hut.