South Island Day 10 : 2 April 2018
Rain, wind, fine, 20°C
Awoke to the sound of wind and rain washing out the sunrise shoot, so we had a wee lie in.
Got up at 9am and grabbed breakfast and packed up the van. The rain had gone but it was still windy. Time to say goodbye to the awesome camp at Glendhu Bay, and we headed back into Wanaka at 10am, for some more shopping.
We left Wanaka at 11am, and headed out past the airport ( there were still quite a few planes from the Warbirds over Wanaka there, which was causing a bit of a traffic jam with people slowing down to look ) and the south along the side of the Clutha and Lake Dunstan to Cromwell. Today and tomorrow we will follow the Clutha from it's source in Lake Wanaka to near it's outflow at Balclutha.
We headed through Cromwell and crossed over the Kawarau Arm of Lake Dunstan to get to Bannockburn. We drove around the vineyards and through the pretty little town then back across the bridge and back into Cromwell. We decided to visit the 'historic' area of Cromwell, as the previous 2 times we had been here it had been raining. We parked up and had some lunch first at 12pm ( fresh croissants and ham and cheese... ) then walked around the buildings that they had rescued / rebuilt from the old part of Cromwell that was now sitting underwater in Lake Dustan ( which was formed from the filing of the Clyde Dam in 1992/3 ) After a nosey around we headed back to the van and drove across the bridge and onto SH8 which would take us through the Clutha Gorge to Alexandra.
We drove through Alexandra ( or Alex as it normally known ) and found our camp at Alexandra Holiday Park ( $38 for 1 night ) and found a spot to park at 2pm
We relaxed for a bit in the sun then had a wander around the camp and down to the river, then back to the van and out for a scout for a location to shoot the sunset. We headed to the old pioneer cemetery on the east side of the Manuherikia River then headed up the lookout on the road to Little Valley. This lookout has a great view over the town of Alex and the surrounding area, and the hills have amazing rock formations and wild thyme covering the whole area. We thought this would be a good spot to shoot later so we headed into town, gave a small deposit to the local gaming machines then headed back up the lookout at 6pm and waited for the sunset.
I never get tired of shooting sunsets, as you never know what you are going to get from Mother Nature. Tonight looked really promising, lots of high cloud around, but the planned shot over the town yielded no colour in the sky as a big area of dark cloud appeared just before sundown, but the sky exploded in the other direction. So Liz and I scrambled across from where we had set up our cameras to the other side of the ridge to capture the colour before it faded.
We headed back down the road at about 7pm and back to camp for some dinner. Now that daylight saving has ended the evenings certainly feel longer which is nice when you want to edit photos / type blogs before bedtime comes around.
