New Zealand - Day 8

Well I'm way behind on my blogging about my New Zealand trip! I've actually a lot less downtime than I anticipated, with most of my "free" time being taken up with driving or sleeping. I'm currently in Wanaka, having some coffee while I recharge my batteries and do a bit of editing. I'm entering the final phase of my trip, which is probably going to be a lot more chilled since I've already blown through most of my money on petrol. But this isn't a post about today, it's a post about yesterday! I'll be working backward trying to do an individual post about each day, but since today it's over yet, I'm starting with yesterday.

Despite being pretty exhausted, I managed to drag myself out of bed for a sunrise shoot at Tasman Glacier - which I had scouted and shot the previous night. I was a little slow in getting up though, and arrived probably 30 minutes later than I would have liked. Such is life! Despite missing the first phase of the sunrise, I arrived for the second, and managed to get a few really cool shots of the icebergs, and a really cool cloud hanging over the mountain (see below). 

Canon 6D + 17-40mm @ 17mm. 1.0sec @ f/11 - ISO100

After this shot I moved down to where the other photographers were, and shot some iceberg photos. I'll save those shots to be edited when I'm back home though. That cloud disappeared within about 5 minutes of me arriving, so I'm glad I did a bit of running down the track to make it in time. I stuck around for about 30 minutes to get some moody looking shots of the area post sunrise, and then returned to the YHA I was staying at to shower and get some food into me.

I spent most of the rest of the day editing, lounging around, and having a 2 hour nap in my campervan. I knew the weather was meant to turn bad, so I decided a trip to Hooker Valley was a must. I roped another photographer - Jessica - into coming with me, and together we set off on the 3 hour round trip to the glacier lake. We met a couple of pretty cool photographers from Sydney/Toronto on the way up, and battled the intense wind together. The wind only got crazier, with guts that must have been over 100kph once we reached the lake. 

I managed to hunker down behind some rocks with my tripod to get some ok shots, but maybe 30 minutes before sunset, the wind changed direction to spray directly into the camera, and heavy clouds obscured the view of the mountain. We took the opportunity to trek back before it got dark, and I spent my evening cooking pasta and chatting with some French/German girls who worked at the hostel! 

All in all it was a pretty productive day! I could have used an extra day in the Mt. Cook region, but with the weather turning, I decided to flee south to Wanaka for some recovery time. But that's a story for Day 9!