Lake Hawea and Lake Wanaka

We were up early to catch the golden light of the morning, breafkasted and into the van to explore our surroundings.  The first stop was Scotts Beach at Lake Hawea.  We parked the van at the top of the road and this is our first view of the lake. 

The weather was packing up and the lighting conditions not brilliant but we did what we could.

Great place to have a picnic under this tree..

The cloud formations were quite dramatic. The lake a greeny colour, and the beach was all shingle which was very hard to walk on, so because of my ankle, I had to stay in one spot.

I had brought a box of filters away with me. Some I had never used before but figured this was a perfect opportunity to do some experimentation. I don't even know what some of the filters were as they had been given to me by my father.  But this one seemed to blur everything but a small spot in the middle.  Almost like a Tilt-Shift Lens!!

Graduated Orange filter - loved how this brought out the greens and yellow on the hills.

Blue Filter and I tinted the sky a bit pink in Lightroom.

Tobacco Filter is my favourite.  Makes the clouds very dramatic..

Graduated Grey making the sky even moodier than it was..

I climbed back up the hill and found a rock and sat down and drank in the view. I ended up taking a couple more shots...

We then went over to Lake Wanaka and met up with the Wanaka Digital Photography Group in one of the cafes. The food was excellent and we asked the locals where we should be going to take great photos. We had a list a mile long and then proceeded to cross each one out. One of the group took us to this man made lake area. It gave us Lupins of all colours, and reflections. Unfortunately the day wasn't the best so we made a note to come back to it when the weather cleared up again. We still spent a bit of time there though.

This is the Rosehip from the Briar Roses growing wild all over this area. People used to collect the rosehips to make syrup which was full of Vitamin C. Shame they don't still do that. 

Some Macro shots of the flax flowers. Tui's love these, but I saw none on this day.

From the man-made lake it was just a hop to this little Beach on Lake Wanaka. Really pretty.

Especially with the yellow Lupins and the Willow trees.

Back up to the Man made lake area again to photograph the lupins again. I collected a whole heap of lupin seeds for Emily and I to take home so we can transform our gardens ready for next spring/summer!

This gives you an idea what we were photographing in - paradise!!

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The weather was super crap all afternoon so we headed back to the back at Lake Hawea for an afternoon nap which I badly needed as it had been a huge day the day before. We then put our photos on the computer, grabbed something to eat, then headed back to Lake Wanaka to the famous tree in the lake. This is THE most photographed tree in New Zealand. I took about 80 images of this tree alone in different positions, using different filters and different camera settings. I can't choose which one is best so I'm putting up a smattering here. If you could tell me which is your favourite please do.  Please also note that when we first started photographing the tree, only ONE shag was there.  That then became two, and finally three.  We started calling them the three Stooges for some reason...  I've numbered them so it's easier for you to tell me which one you like best...  Don't for get you can click on any image in here to view it larger.

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And so completes day 3 of our trip down south, 5 more days to go and lots more images!!!

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