I am sitting in a backpacker’s hostel overlooking Wanaka right now, cataloging and backing up a stash of images from the last few days. We just biked the 160 km Otago Rail Trail over four days. The weather wasn’t the best for comfort – norwest headwind on day 1, freezing rain on day 2, more wind on day 3 then finally a good tailwind on the last day – but is did create some magnificent light and sky landscapes. I hauled a stripped down camera kit (one body & 3 lenses) but it still seemed like more weight than I needed at times.
While on the trail we met many interesting people. A chance encounter with two traveling English photographers in the Ranfurly pub ended up with us comparing thoughts and ideas all evening. Escaping from the freezing rain to the warm reception by Ken & Helen at Glen Ida. A random encounter with a young woman who quit her job in the US a year ago and is now peddling her way around the world with only what she can carry on her bike. And of course the other rail trail bikers including our near neighbour Dave.
The plan is to carry on around the south for a while (autumn colour in Arrowtown is high on the list) then work our way north, maybe up the west Coast. I’m enjoying being able to carry out most of my essential work on the go; a couple of hard drives with copies of my entire archive and a very good laptop. Well it hardly qualifies as a laptop – an 18.4″ AW series Sony Vaio – not something you would open up seated on a plane! But it does have an amazing screen, one of the few that faithfully displays a full Adobe RGB colour gamut and has enough screen real estate to enable accurate image editing unlike most laptops. With this and a mobile wireless router I’m still in business while on the road.
Change is good – getting out of the usual routines definitely sparks the creative juice.
Cloud and road converge on the rail trail
Hi Bill, We met you on the Central Otago Rail Trail – cycling it the same days as you and your partner – she gave us your card in the dining room at the Omakau pub.
You were both in the little cafe at Hayes Engineering, Oturehua, when we arrived about lunchtime on the freezing cold day. What a wonderful lady at the cafe who let us wring out our soaking socks and gloves on the stone floor and then arranged transport for those that wanted it. We enjoyed meeting all the different people on the trail -some nice and others not so nice. We took photos too but not being professionals we have not captured the light and interesting cloud formations that you have. We wondered if, or when you may have a selection of the Rail Trail photos ready for viewing.
Please let us know. Thankyou Chris and Doug, Spencerville, Christchurch
Hi Chris & Doug – nice to hear from you, the ride seems ages ago now! I have a backlog of admin to catch up with including editing new photos to put here. I’m planning on doing a new portfolio section ‘South Island from the road’ which will be an evolving collection of the shots I like best from our trips this year. Might be a little while before I get it sorted, but it will happen!
Hi Bill. Great shot. I am actually wanting more information about an aerial picture you took of the upper Rakaia Valley/Lake Heron basin. You are looking SE and it looks like your above the Mathias Valley. Is that image for sale? I saw it on the Glenfalloch Station website and have not found it in your gallery. Cheers and wishing you all the best.