Day 6 - Wanaka and Frogs

Day six of our Trip to Lake Wanaka dawned bright and sunny.  It had snowed overnight, so the morning was crisp and cool, but everything sparkly fresh and green.  This was at the beginning of September and I can guarantee with drought conditions, that the area will not be green like this at the moment!  We headed down to the man-made lake which is just by the lakeshore of Lake Wanaka, to take photos of reflections, blue sky, mountains, and more Lupins.  In this image, you can see wild Briar Roses, Purple and yellow Lupins, native trees and the snowcapped mountains beyond the lake..

Here's Liz photographing on the other side of the lake from me.  The Blues were amazing, but they were brought out further with the CPL filter on my lens.

And when the breeze calmed down a bit, we got the reflections I had wanted...

Huge dragonflies buzzed around, but they were very hard to photograph, hardly ever stopping...

More snowcapped mountain prettiness...

And even more reflections - I was in my element....

This was a pristine site for photography but something was really bugging me. The continual sound of a chainsaw in an otherwise beautiful calm morning. It was really getting my back up and I was just about to moan to Emily and Liz about it when something caught my eye....

And this is when I realised that there were no chainsaws in the area at all, but what I was hearing through my cochlear implant was a sound I hadn't really heard before in great detail.  Hundreds of frogs croaking....

I loved how they just floated on the top of the water, with the reflections making them look like they had four eyes, not two...

To get these photographs, one had to stand in the same place and be extremely still. The slightest movement then they stopped croaking and disappeared from the top of the water. As soon as you were stock still again, you would eventually hear their call, and then see them floating on top of the water again..

I loved seeing the Bullfrogs in action - how they puffed up their throats, which in turn sent out circular ripples...

I was actually surprised how large their throats expanded without exploding!!

At first when I processed these images I thought the black spots were dust on my camera lens - but later I realised they were insects floating on the water.  The frogs would suddenly leap and get these insects. I was never fast enough to get the image though!

And just a reminder to what it was like around this man-made frog lake, lupins and mountains all around. Jealous?

Here's another Bullfrog.

I love the way they floated on the water too - they seemed to use their webbed feet as a floatation device... 

Note the insect getting closer to this frog. Once again I missed the action of the tongue snatch and grab - they were so fast!

It was such a gorgeous morning, even the damselflies were enjoying the day making out in public areas not caring that we were watching.  I almost felt like I was intruding...

A hop step and a jump away from the man-made lake, was Lake Wanaka - (which isn't man-made!)).  The beach was full of bright yellow lupins and I'm sure this tree will not be in the lake now, as I believe the water levels are now very low after our summer...

Kayakers were enjoying the morning and scenery..

The little beach I was on...

Emily with her big lens taking photos of the Kayakers as they were passing.  I was sitting on a rock with my feet in the water as my foot was so sore - at this stage I hadn't realised I had broken it.  The cold of the lake was bliss on the ankle.

This is such a stunning place for photography. Can't wait to get back there again. Seeing the frogs was magic as you rarely see them anywhere.. They are starting to become endangered.

Puzzling World at Lake Wanaka

Day 4 of our trip down south and we awoke to crappy weather. So after quick trip to the lake to photograph the Tree in the Lake briefly in the rain, and a great catch-up with Roger Urlwin, who is a great landscape photographer in Wanaka we headed to Puzzling World. The perfect thing to do in Wanaka when it rains. Puzzling World has two parts - an outdoor maze and an 'illusion' part. We weren't interested in the outdoor maze at all, so just paid to do the Illusion section. 

We paid our $14 then decided we needed to visit the bathroom first...

This is what greeted us. An amazing illusion and ery well done. The sign said:

"Roman Style Toilets. View the Diarama from the centre of the room for the best perspective, and take an fascinating photograph! Roman toilets often had running water under the seats (Flush Toilets) and the Romans often carried a brush as part of their personal toiletries. This brush was used instead of toilet paper. The toilets here are to look at, not to USE"

So I took some photographs as they suggested...

Note  I purposely wore those socks especially for effect as I knew of this diarama in advance!  I also took lots of other photographs but was under strict instructions not to post them on this blog.  I'm open to bribery and corruption of course - just hit the donate button on the right hand side of the blog!!!

After much laughter watching other people there as well, we headed to the Illusion part. But wait. There's some flowers. Emily, Liz and I then started photographing these!

The roses were particularly good specimens as they were quite sheltered. I love playing around with textures and this is one I came up with which I'm quite pleased with.

But this has to be one of my best images of a red rose. Red roses often turn out pink in my camera, and I've always deleted them in disappointment. However I've finally mastered how to get them right in Lightroom so am very happy with this outcome. After about half an hour we realised we had paid $14 to photograph roses that are accessible by anyone. We laughed and tore ourselves away to actually enter Puzzling World itself!

First up was the Hologram Hall. Quite a collection of them and some big ones too.

In this one, as you walked back and forth a gun appeared, which was unexpected!

As you walked back and forth, she smiled or didn't smile!

On the walls were illusions such as these...

Are these lines straight? Or not. Even my camera was confused!  They are totally straight!

This was fun. A room fall of famous faces in the Hall of the Following Faces. No matter which way you went, the faces followed you. Here's Emily testing it out with one eye.

And Liz in front of Mother Teresa...

Next up was the Ames Room which was used in the Lord of the Rings. It's known as a forced perspective room where, when you look at it from the viewpoint it looks normal. But the shape of the room is actually really distorted. It is used to create tall people and little people as demonstrated here. First, in this image, I look really small in comparison to the height of the ceiling.

As I go into the centre, I still look small..

But in the middle, it now looks as if I'm of normal height..

But on the other side, I look way too tall..

and I have to try pushing up the ceiling to fit!

Emily, Liz and I all had fun in this room. Having cameras tripled the fun!

Next up was the Tilted House. The room is tilted at an angle of 15 degrees. All the displays are 'normal' and your brain cannot adjust to the fact the floor is tilted. It was particularly tough on me because my balance system is totally stuffed anyway, so the room did make me feel nauseous.

In the following image, Emily is actually upgright, she's not leaning forward at all.

Although it looks like Liz has gone uphill, she had actually gone downhill - where she is, is actually the 'bottom' of the ride. This felt particularly bizarre.

Here Emily is trying to walk uphill, and it's quite hard to walk because the illusion is so strong and your brain can't cope with the fact that the floor is sloping. I wonder how long it would take for your brain to get used to it. I certainly hadn't after 20 minutes.

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The swing permanently on a slope - again - another illusion because it's actually the walls at an angle as is the floor. The brain continually straightens up the room at the expense of the expense of the displays which seem to hang at impossible angles.

Out to the Cafe where they had a mirrored ceiling which gave great abstracts...

Finally we ventured outside where lots of tourists were in line to get interesting photos with the leaning tower... Here's Liz trying to hold it up!

I ventured back to the car and sat opened up the side door, and sat in the passenger seat while I waited for Liz and Emily to catch up. As they approached, something moved and gave me a fright. A songthrush had flown into the van (most unusual), and got frightened and flew into the front, landed on the dashboard and stared at me. I didn't think to get my camera out! I slowly got out on my side and moved away, and Emily opened her side up and it flew out. not before leaving a white deposit on top of the dashboard!

So that was our afternoon. Fully Recommend Puzzling World, especially on a rainy day when outdoor activities aren't so good.