Category: Other Bits

Kawakawa Glamping

Glamping: “a form of camping involving accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping“.  After travelling 35hrs from London to New Zealand the day before we were wisked away for a quick break at Kawakawa Station on the Palliser Cape in the South Wairarapa.  We had wanted a couple of days away from the hustle and bustle of city life and luckily enough for us, my sister had organised a bit of a surprise.  Arriving into Wellington to a howling southerly was nothing new, but it was supposed to be summer! The weather in the Wairarapa wasn’t any better and we thought we were in for a couple of wet days, the first thing we did was light the wood burner in the tent to warms things up.  It pretty much rained all night but by the morning it had cleared and the sun came out.  Below are a few photos of the ‘glamping’ and our visit to Cape Palliser and here is a link to the glamping website.

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The view from quarter of the way up the hill behind the campsite.

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The main tent.

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Inside the main tent, note the wood burner.

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Even the local sheep weren’t enjoying the cooler weather.

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Bacon butties for lunch! Showering with a view!

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Cape Palliser.

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Couldn’t resist photographing some of the local Architecture.

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Fun with puddles!

 

Boomrock 2012

On a recent trip back to New Zealand I visited Boomrock again.  The Fleetsafe NZ program is in full swing and they have just gone through a change of vehicle provider with Holden NZ now providing the cars.  It was a little unexpected when I was asked to come out to the track to shoot a new Holden Calais doing a few test laps and I was slightly under prepared. It was a less than perfect evening but I still jumped at the chance to get some shots.  The track is perched up on top of a large hill which is exposed to the wind in all directions but has amazing views of the Marlborough Sounds and the Cook Straight. It’s an awesome place to be as you can see from some of the images I managed to get.

Sabah – East Malaysia

After planning this trip more than 3 times Gabi and I finally made it to Sabah, East Malaysia.  Kota Kinabalu was our first stop and from there it was over to climb Mt Kinabalu and then onto the Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary before returning for a rest at a nice beach resort just north of Kota Kinabalu.

Sunset over Kota Kinabalu from Signal Hill.

We discovered some interesting architecture whilst exploring Kota Kinabalu including the oldest standing structure in Sabah, the Atkinson Clock Tower. It has survived the destruction of Jesselton town, now called Kota Kinabalu, during World War II and is a wooden structure built in 1903 with no nails.

The mighty Mt Kinabalu with it’s summit at 4095.2m above sea level. It took us 4hrs hard slog to reach the over night stop at Laban Rata in the bottom right picture.  Laban Rata is the white speck just above the vegetation line in the top image.

An amazing sunset seen from Laban Rata heli pad at 3273m above sea level.

After a chilly trek to the summit, it seemed we were in luck with clear skies for the sunrise.  However, the mountain had different ideas and as the sun came up the mist rolled in and visibility was restricted to only a few hundred feet.  Once we started descending the low clouds disappeared and some of the peaks became visible. The top and right image are of South Peak (which can also be seen on the Malaysian 1 Ringgit note) and the middle image is Donkey Ears peak.  The left hand image is what can only be described as an endless steep rock ramp.  It’s difficult to comprehend how steep and vast this area was so I tried to give the image some scale by including the people in the shot.

And finally we got to see some wild, or should I say rehabilitated, Orangutans in their own jungle environment. I also managed to get a couple of close up shots of a cheeky Macaque monkey who decided to play havoc with the tourists.  He could see his reflection in my lens, so he looked right down the barrel for me.

Overall, we had an adventurous and educational trip to Sabah. It’s a great place to visit, the people are friendly and helpful and I would highly recommend it.

 

Boomrock

Located on 8km of stunning coastline North West of Wellington is Boomrock.  We headed out there on a fairly non descript, dull Wellington day to help test some equipment for the Fleetsafe NZ programme.  Fleetsafe NZ has been developed to create vehicle awareness and driver training. In conjunction with Mercedes-Benz and assistance from the late Peter Brock, Boomrock has a purpose built car testing circuit where one can experience hot laps with professional drivers to hands on driver training.  Because we were there to help test some in car equipment no hot laps were experienced but we were lucky enough to be driving around in a brand new Mercedes-Benz C class car for a couple of hours.  You can read all about Boomrock here at www.boomrock.co.nz

I had also just purchased a new Canon 70-200mm f2.8L IS II USM lens and these were some of the first test shots with this lens.