Journals5
Newest
Christmas goodies
9 min read
Wow! Time I got rid of that ancient journal entry about Walking the Kepler Track which I did in, what, summer 2008? Way back when. So much has happened since. I won't pretend to update all of you on all of it, however if you are really curious about what's been going on with my larger than life life, feel free to read yourself through my newsletter -- which I've kept up with fair regularity ever since. 
(ok you don't really have to. But you might want to! If you're looking for an entertaining reality show type good read! Yeah, I'm done with putting my light under the lamp shade.) www.asni.net/newsletter/nl_mai…
This journal entry is not going to be a piece of autobiographical literature, or precious pieces of my hard won life wisdom. It is not a feminist rant nor a musing on the State of the Art. No. It is an unabashed PIMP:
For my online shop: www.asni.net/shop.php * my Etsy store: www.etsy.com/shop/Asni * and the prints I have for sale through the DA print service. Which gives you *30% OFF ALL WEEKEND*. How cool is that. I bet everyone is updating their journals just now!
I ask you: ARE YOU LOOKING for some first class unique made in New Zealand exceptional exciting Christmas pressies? ARE MOREOVER A FAN of all things Tolkien and Hobbit and Lord of the Rings?
Then you have come to the right place.
There's this: Middle Earth New Zealand 2013 photo wall calendar: photography.asni.net/calendar.…
And just in, is this: Map of New Zealand Film Locations (including Lord of the Rings, and Other movies, such as Narnia series, Last Samurai, The Piano, Whale Rider, etc. etc. ) photography.asni.net/nzmap.php -- or you can order a print through the DA print store
... and if you just wanted to send a few Christmas cards, with an appropriate wintry seasonal theme (for those of you in Northern climates): try this:
or this
Cards can be ordered through the DA print service, through my website: www.asni.net/cardorder.php. or through my Etsy store: www.etsy.com/shop/Asni
Also to say, many thanks to all the people who have favored my photos, or commented on them. I try to reply to all comments, but I can't keep up with saying thankyou for every fave any more - I do that on my main account, Starsong-Studio, and it's been turning into a bit of a rather time consuming chore! Though I do like doing it - but I have to draw the line somewhere, and that will be doing it on both my accounts, so please consider yourselves, all who have been supporting me, SUMMARILY THANKED. Thank you very much indeed. And I will keep stealing peeks at people's galleries when they fave me, rest assured of that.
(ok you don't really have to. But you might want to! If you're looking for an entertaining reality show type good read! Yeah, I'm done with putting my light under the lamp shade.) www.asni.net/newsletter/nl_mai…This journal entry is not going to be a piece of autobiographical literature, or precious pieces of my hard won life wisdom. It is not a feminist rant nor a musing on the State of the Art. No. It is an unabashed PIMP:
For my online shop: www.asni.net/shop.php * my Etsy store: www.etsy.com/shop/Asni * and the prints I have for sale through the DA print service. Which gives you *30% OFF ALL WEEKEND*. How cool is that. I bet everyone is updating their journals just now!
I ask you: ARE YOU LOOKING for some first class unique made in New Zealand exceptional exciting Christmas pressies? ARE MOREOVER A FAN of all things Tolkien and Hobbit and Lord of the Rings?
Then you have come to the right place.
There's this: Middle Earth New Zealand 2013 photo wall calendar: photography.asni.net/calendar.…
And just in, is this: Map of New Zealand Film Locations (including Lord of the Rings, and Other movies, such as Narnia series, Last Samurai, The Piano, Whale Rider, etc. etc. ) photography.asni.net/nzmap.php -- or you can order a print through the DA print store
... and if you just wanted to send a few Christmas cards, with an appropriate wintry seasonal theme (for those of you in Northern climates): try this:
or this
Cards can be ordered through the DA print service, through my website: www.asni.net/cardorder.php. or through my Etsy store: www.etsy.com/shop/Asni
Also to say, many thanks to all the people who have favored my photos, or commented on them. I try to reply to all comments, but I can't keep up with saying thankyou for every fave any more - I do that on my main account, Starsong-Studio, and it's been turning into a bit of a rather time consuming chore! Though I do like doing it - but I have to draw the line somewhere, and that will be doing it on both my accounts, so please consider yourselves, all who have been supporting me, SUMMARILY THANKED. Thank you very much indeed.
And I will keep stealing peeks at people's galleries when they fave me, rest assured of that.
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Walking the Kepler track
11 min read
My February newsletter is now online! www.asni.net/newsletter.html
Lots of gorgeous photos from my hike in Fjordland - and this is the story that goes with it:
WALKING THE KEPLER TRACK
I'll take up the story of my epic South Island trip earlier this summer where I left it – at Manapouri campsite, getting ready for the big hike.
The first challenge was to fit everything I was going to need on a four day hike – food, clothing, sleeping bag, cooking equipment, some water, emergency gear – into a backpack, and then to be able to hoist it on my back and carry it through potentially rough territory for up to seven hours a day. The Department of Conservation has published a very useful booklet listing exactly what one needs – and it is wise to pack exactly that, no more, no less. The people at the DOC Centre in Te Anau are happy to offer good advice and reassurance, and in any case it pays to check the latest weather report before going on the track, and to register one's itinerary and expected time of return.
The day of the hike dawned with heavy rain - and I lay in my tent wondering if it was indeed a good idea to start the hike, under those conditions. Eventually I drove to Te Anau, about an hour behind schedule. Fortunately the people at the campsite were happy to store my harps and video gear for a few days, so instead of parking the car in the supervised car park at Te Anau, I saved myself 45 minute's walk by leaving the car at the Lake Te Anau control gates, and starting the track from there.
The first part of the hike leads through some of the most amazingly beautiful beech forest, following the Waiau river to the swing bridge at Rainbow Reach – another entry point to the track – and then on to the first hut at Moturau, passing some wetlands on the way. The track on this leg stays fairly level, going from one lakeshore to the next, and it's a good way to get accustomed to carrying all that weight on one's back.
I had been advised to walk clockwise, rather than the usual anti-clockwise direction, and that turned out to be a good idea. The main reason was a recent slip which hadn' t been fixed yet, on the second leg between Moturau and Iris Burn huts, where a part of the track had fallen into the river. Supposedly it was easier to tackle the detour going uphill… When I got there I realized it was indeed no joking matter. Being one of the Big Walks, the Kepler track is kept in meticulous condition and is, for the most part, broad, smooth and really easy to walk. The improvised detour around the slip suddenly required us to scramble up a very steep, muddy slope, with no proper track, just some improvised steps and handholds, mostly swinging from one tree to the next, ape style – all with a heavy pack!
I got stuck fairly soon – one of the steps was nearly waist high, with no proper handhold, and I simply didn't have enough strength in my legs to drag myself and my pack up it. As I stood there in the mud pondering the situation, a well-timed party came down the opposite way, and one of their young men very graciously offered to carry my pack all the way to the top. May he live long and happily! I then slid myself and my pack separately down the rest of the detour – which was only moderately less steep – until I regained the main track.
By that time it was a little later in the day than I was quite comfortable with. I had had a long lunch break earlier on, and lost track of time a little while doing a sketch – yes, I did drag a slim A3 pad into the forest for this very purpose, but found that sketching and hiking don't really mix. The rest of that day's hike went smoothly, but I kept my breaks short. A pack can get pretty heavy with no proper breaks… a whiff of wood smoke, and soon after the sight of Iris Burn hut shimmering through the trees, was a great joy and relief that evening! The sheer beauty and primeval peacefulness of the place made up for any hardship though.
The next day's hike was going to take me nearly a 1000 metres up the Southern Alps and then across an exposed mountain ridge to Luxmore Hut. The previous day's walk had about pushed me to my physical limits, so I was a little anxious about the prospect of a two hour climb. But the hut warden was, as always, reassuring – and walking back across that slip didn't seem such an attractive option either. So I shouldered my pack and started trudging up that mountainside… and soon realized that, slowly, steadily, I was indeed going to make it to the top.
The crisis came when I got there. It had started snowing a little before I reached the tree line, and when I came out on the mountaintop I saw several things:
- The snow was blowing horizontally in a fairly strong and gusty wind, and I had no idea if it was going to get worse. And once out on that ridge, turning back would be as bad as trudging on.
- Speaking of ridge – the path went, for as far as I could see (which was not terribly far), along the top of a mountain ridge with a very long and steep fall to the right, and a very long and steep fall to the left. It was a reasonably broad ridge – but I have bad vertigo and fear of heights. Oh yes, and did I mention that there was a snow storm going on?
- Besides, my clothes were wet with perspiration and the shelter, which I had expected to find when reaching the top, and where I was going to change into warmer and dryer clothing, was another 45 minute's walk away. Along a mountain ridge in a snow storm. I think I mentioned that.
- I also saw another pair of hikers ahead of me, a young couple from Brazil whom I had met the days before, trudging through the blizzard halfway to the shelter, the brave souls.
I took a few steps out on the ridge. My legs started to tremble uncontrollably. I turned back. I prepared to walk back down the hill to Iris Burn hut.
Then I turned again. I set my teeth and took a deep breath and decided to try and walk as far as the first snow pole, some 10 metres ahead. Then to the next pole. Ah stuff it, let's go one further… eventually my legs stopped trembling so badly – which made walking a whole lot easier, I can tell you!
But it was thinking as far as the next snow pole for all of that way. Sometimes there were wooden steps to help with the climb. Sometimes the ridge broadened out a little, giving me a short respite from panic. A couple of times I got down to my hands and knees and crawled, where the ridge that gave a tiny little bit of shelter from the wind gusts and the view had crumbled away and I felt like I might be swept down into the lowlands.
By the time I got to the shelter, the snow was blowing ever thicker and I didn't have space for any thought except reaching that shelter. A few people were huddled in there already – and they gasped when they saw me come in like a yeti all encrusted in snow. The Brazilian girl was shaking and nearly in tears, a plain case of hypothermia – the poor people had clearly not known what they were getting themselves into, and didn't have much experience at all of snow.
When I saw that, the mother hen instincts took over my own panic. I got her to change into some dry clothing, and borrowed her my spare pair of socks – she was walking in three pairs of cotton socks, which by that time were of course soaking wet. Note to my readers: Do not try to walk the Kepler track in cotton socks!
I had been silently cursing myself for dragging my little gas cooker along just in case there was a gas failure at any of the huts, thereby adding a chunk of unnecessary weight – but now I was glad to have it. I boiled us tea from some ice sheets I found outside in the rainwater tank… and got her to hold the hot pot on her lap for a while. She finally relaxed and stopped shaking.
We had to get on. The wind and snow didn't show any sign of letting off, but me and the Brazilians had decided to stick together for the next part of the track, the one and a half to two hours between the two shelters. This, we had been warned, was the most exposed part of the track. But perhaps the wind was blowing from an unusual direction that day, for we soon found ourselves walking in the wind shelter of the higher ridge to one side of the track. To our very great surprise and relief, the second shelter appeared after just over an hour's fairly smooth walk!
After a short rest, and greatly encouraged, we started on the last leg of this day's journey. The path climbed and climbed through a grey nothingness of clouds, and I had to fight hard against another surge of panic. Good thing the two Brazilians were walking right behind me, so I had to pull myself together and just walk on. Once or twice the clouds drifted apart and we got a glimpse of the majesty of the views we would have had on a fine day. Deep down, I was secretly grateful that the fog at least helped to keep my vertigo at bay.
We came past the summit of Mt Luxmore with no curiosity to explore, and then finally the track started to dive down into more sheltered regions. That evening at Luxmore hut, the hut warden congratulated everyone who had come across the ridge that day in what had been, apparently, less than favourable conditions even to those who were familiar with the territory.
But what had made it so difficult? I reflected. Had it really been dangerous? Other people with less experience than myself had come across fine. And I had to admit that the only reason I had not been able to walk out on that mountain ridge the first time round was my own abject fear. What other things can I not do simply because I am afraid of them? I wondered. Two things sprang to mind spontaneously. One of them was, why have I never even tried to turn painting into a part of my livelihood? Now there was an interesting question to ponder on the way down the mountain.
The last part of the walk, five hours downhill through sheltered forest back to Te Anau, seemed like a piece of cake after that day's trip. The next day dawned bright and sunny, and I took my time and had a really long breakfast in the hut common room, which has got to be one of the greatest places on this planet to have a really long breakfast in.
That day, it so happened, was the day of the annual Kepler challenge – a marathon race all the way round the track. These people RUN up that mountain and across that ridge and back down, the fastest did it in just under 5 hours! The same track that it took me four slow days to walk. Sadly, this meant that civilization with its noise and bustle was coming to meet me a little earlier than it should have – there were helicopters flying over all day, and when I got down to the lakeside I could hear the megaphones from the finishing line from an hour away. After four days in the quiet remoteness of the Fjordland bush and mountains, little sleepy Te Anau seemed positively hectic. But it was rather thoughtful of them to put up a big victory sign at the finishing line, for that was exactly what I felt I deserved when I walked off the track that afternoon.
Arohanui, from Asni
See the photos here: www.asni.net/newsletter.html
Lots of gorgeous photos from my hike in Fjordland - and this is the story that goes with it:
WALKING THE KEPLER TRACK
I'll take up the story of my epic South Island trip earlier this summer where I left it – at Manapouri campsite, getting ready for the big hike.
The first challenge was to fit everything I was going to need on a four day hike – food, clothing, sleeping bag, cooking equipment, some water, emergency gear – into a backpack, and then to be able to hoist it on my back and carry it through potentially rough territory for up to seven hours a day. The Department of Conservation has published a very useful booklet listing exactly what one needs – and it is wise to pack exactly that, no more, no less. The people at the DOC Centre in Te Anau are happy to offer good advice and reassurance, and in any case it pays to check the latest weather report before going on the track, and to register one's itinerary and expected time of return.
The day of the hike dawned with heavy rain - and I lay in my tent wondering if it was indeed a good idea to start the hike, under those conditions. Eventually I drove to Te Anau, about an hour behind schedule. Fortunately the people at the campsite were happy to store my harps and video gear for a few days, so instead of parking the car in the supervised car park at Te Anau, I saved myself 45 minute's walk by leaving the car at the Lake Te Anau control gates, and starting the track from there.
The first part of the hike leads through some of the most amazingly beautiful beech forest, following the Waiau river to the swing bridge at Rainbow Reach – another entry point to the track – and then on to the first hut at Moturau, passing some wetlands on the way. The track on this leg stays fairly level, going from one lakeshore to the next, and it's a good way to get accustomed to carrying all that weight on one's back.
I had been advised to walk clockwise, rather than the usual anti-clockwise direction, and that turned out to be a good idea. The main reason was a recent slip which hadn' t been fixed yet, on the second leg between Moturau and Iris Burn huts, where a part of the track had fallen into the river. Supposedly it was easier to tackle the detour going uphill… When I got there I realized it was indeed no joking matter. Being one of the Big Walks, the Kepler track is kept in meticulous condition and is, for the most part, broad, smooth and really easy to walk. The improvised detour around the slip suddenly required us to scramble up a very steep, muddy slope, with no proper track, just some improvised steps and handholds, mostly swinging from one tree to the next, ape style – all with a heavy pack!
I got stuck fairly soon – one of the steps was nearly waist high, with no proper handhold, and I simply didn't have enough strength in my legs to drag myself and my pack up it. As I stood there in the mud pondering the situation, a well-timed party came down the opposite way, and one of their young men very graciously offered to carry my pack all the way to the top. May he live long and happily! I then slid myself and my pack separately down the rest of the detour – which was only moderately less steep – until I regained the main track.
By that time it was a little later in the day than I was quite comfortable with. I had had a long lunch break earlier on, and lost track of time a little while doing a sketch – yes, I did drag a slim A3 pad into the forest for this very purpose, but found that sketching and hiking don't really mix. The rest of that day's hike went smoothly, but I kept my breaks short. A pack can get pretty heavy with no proper breaks… a whiff of wood smoke, and soon after the sight of Iris Burn hut shimmering through the trees, was a great joy and relief that evening! The sheer beauty and primeval peacefulness of the place made up for any hardship though.
The next day's hike was going to take me nearly a 1000 metres up the Southern Alps and then across an exposed mountain ridge to Luxmore Hut. The previous day's walk had about pushed me to my physical limits, so I was a little anxious about the prospect of a two hour climb. But the hut warden was, as always, reassuring – and walking back across that slip didn't seem such an attractive option either. So I shouldered my pack and started trudging up that mountainside… and soon realized that, slowly, steadily, I was indeed going to make it to the top.
The crisis came when I got there. It had started snowing a little before I reached the tree line, and when I came out on the mountaintop I saw several things:
- The snow was blowing horizontally in a fairly strong and gusty wind, and I had no idea if it was going to get worse. And once out on that ridge, turning back would be as bad as trudging on.
- Speaking of ridge – the path went, for as far as I could see (which was not terribly far), along the top of a mountain ridge with a very long and steep fall to the right, and a very long and steep fall to the left. It was a reasonably broad ridge – but I have bad vertigo and fear of heights. Oh yes, and did I mention that there was a snow storm going on?
- Besides, my clothes were wet with perspiration and the shelter, which I had expected to find when reaching the top, and where I was going to change into warmer and dryer clothing, was another 45 minute's walk away. Along a mountain ridge in a snow storm. I think I mentioned that.
- I also saw another pair of hikers ahead of me, a young couple from Brazil whom I had met the days before, trudging through the blizzard halfway to the shelter, the brave souls.
I took a few steps out on the ridge. My legs started to tremble uncontrollably. I turned back. I prepared to walk back down the hill to Iris Burn hut.
Then I turned again. I set my teeth and took a deep breath and decided to try and walk as far as the first snow pole, some 10 metres ahead. Then to the next pole. Ah stuff it, let's go one further… eventually my legs stopped trembling so badly – which made walking a whole lot easier, I can tell you!
But it was thinking as far as the next snow pole for all of that way. Sometimes there were wooden steps to help with the climb. Sometimes the ridge broadened out a little, giving me a short respite from panic. A couple of times I got down to my hands and knees and crawled, where the ridge that gave a tiny little bit of shelter from the wind gusts and the view had crumbled away and I felt like I might be swept down into the lowlands.
By the time I got to the shelter, the snow was blowing ever thicker and I didn't have space for any thought except reaching that shelter. A few people were huddled in there already – and they gasped when they saw me come in like a yeti all encrusted in snow. The Brazilian girl was shaking and nearly in tears, a plain case of hypothermia – the poor people had clearly not known what they were getting themselves into, and didn't have much experience at all of snow.
When I saw that, the mother hen instincts took over my own panic. I got her to change into some dry clothing, and borrowed her my spare pair of socks – she was walking in three pairs of cotton socks, which by that time were of course soaking wet. Note to my readers: Do not try to walk the Kepler track in cotton socks!
I had been silently cursing myself for dragging my little gas cooker along just in case there was a gas failure at any of the huts, thereby adding a chunk of unnecessary weight – but now I was glad to have it. I boiled us tea from some ice sheets I found outside in the rainwater tank… and got her to hold the hot pot on her lap for a while. She finally relaxed and stopped shaking.
We had to get on. The wind and snow didn't show any sign of letting off, but me and the Brazilians had decided to stick together for the next part of the track, the one and a half to two hours between the two shelters. This, we had been warned, was the most exposed part of the track. But perhaps the wind was blowing from an unusual direction that day, for we soon found ourselves walking in the wind shelter of the higher ridge to one side of the track. To our very great surprise and relief, the second shelter appeared after just over an hour's fairly smooth walk!
After a short rest, and greatly encouraged, we started on the last leg of this day's journey. The path climbed and climbed through a grey nothingness of clouds, and I had to fight hard against another surge of panic. Good thing the two Brazilians were walking right behind me, so I had to pull myself together and just walk on. Once or twice the clouds drifted apart and we got a glimpse of the majesty of the views we would have had on a fine day. Deep down, I was secretly grateful that the fog at least helped to keep my vertigo at bay.
We came past the summit of Mt Luxmore with no curiosity to explore, and then finally the track started to dive down into more sheltered regions. That evening at Luxmore hut, the hut warden congratulated everyone who had come across the ridge that day in what had been, apparently, less than favourable conditions even to those who were familiar with the territory.
But what had made it so difficult? I reflected. Had it really been dangerous? Other people with less experience than myself had come across fine. And I had to admit that the only reason I had not been able to walk out on that mountain ridge the first time round was my own abject fear. What other things can I not do simply because I am afraid of them? I wondered. Two things sprang to mind spontaneously. One of them was, why have I never even tried to turn painting into a part of my livelihood? Now there was an interesting question to ponder on the way down the mountain.
The last part of the walk, five hours downhill through sheltered forest back to Te Anau, seemed like a piece of cake after that day's trip. The next day dawned bright and sunny, and I took my time and had a really long breakfast in the hut common room, which has got to be one of the greatest places on this planet to have a really long breakfast in.
That day, it so happened, was the day of the annual Kepler challenge – a marathon race all the way round the track. These people RUN up that mountain and across that ridge and back down, the fastest did it in just under 5 hours! The same track that it took me four slow days to walk. Sadly, this meant that civilization with its noise and bustle was coming to meet me a little earlier than it should have – there were helicopters flying over all day, and when I got down to the lakeside I could hear the megaphones from the finishing line from an hour away. After four days in the quiet remoteness of the Fjordland bush and mountains, little sleepy Te Anau seemed positively hectic. But it was rather thoughtful of them to put up a big victory sign at the finishing line, for that was exactly what I felt I deserved when I walked off the track that afternoon.
Arohanui, from Asni
See the photos here: www.asni.net/newsletter.html
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
South Island Photo Album
11 min read
Hey there,
I've just written up my monthly newsletter, thought I'd share some of it here.
The full version with lots of images that aren't in my gallery (yet) can be viewed here:
www.asni.net/newsletter.html
There's also the brand new reader poll - would be cool if you could partake! Http://www.asni.net/newsletter_poll.php It's for everyone, not just regular subscribers. Of course, you could also *become* a subscriber...
SOUTH ISLAND PHOTO ALBUM
please view the newsletter online to see the images: www.asni.net/newsletter.html
Last newsletter, I promised I would tell you about my adventuresome trip to the South Island and show some brand new photos – so here is my account. To follow the itinerary, try typing the placenames into Google Earth!
Stage 1: Christchurch
To start off, I spend a couple of nights in Christchurch with my friend and fellow harper Helen Webby. Helen has recently bought her own house and garden, and it was really nice to visit her there and have a look at her ambitious gardening projects. I had a somewhat futile chat with the music advisor at Creative New Zealand (which left me wondering if their organization has access to the internet, and the information it can potentially provide about the past achievements of people such as myself), then spent a happy afternoon with another friend whom I hadn’t seen since I stayed at her house a few weeks after first arriving in New Zealand, and an evening discussing movie projects with a filmmaker friend of Helen’s. No photos though – although I should have, the Botanical gardens were in full rose blossom and absolutely gorgeous, and Christchurch seems a very pleasant place indeed, in early summer.
Stage 2: Back to the old Edoras location
No trip to Christchurch without a detour up the Rangitata valley, to Mt Potts station and Mt Sunday, where once the Edoras set was built. On the way out, in the middle of nowhere, at around 7 pm, I had a flat tyre… a calamity which in all my long years of driving, I had never had to deal with before. Good thing I’m smart and self-reliant, because if I had caved in to the temptation to wait for a helpful guy to come along and save me, I wouldn’t have gotten very far that night… it is not exactly a very frequented road, and as it turned out I was the last car on it heading out that evening.
As it was, I found a lovely sheltered spot by a little mountain river next to a sheep pasture, to set up camp, and spent a while playing my little harp (which for some reason I had felt compelled to drag along) to the stars, and made up a new song. The next morning I had a long breakfast, spent some time sketching, went for a walk but decided with some relief, that the river was too swollen to walk across and climb up Mt Sunday, took a number of photos, and was on the road again in time to get back to civilization – well, that is, Mt Somers - while the local mechanic was still up and about, so I could borrow an air pump for my spare tyre, so it would survive until I could find real civilization and a proper garage.
Stage 3: Oamaru
I spent the night just outside Oamaru – having decided to skip a detour to Twizel and Mt Cook on account of more urgent matters – and the next day, got myself a pair of brand new tyres, and spent about half my travel budget. It was well worth the while stopping over in Oamaru though – home town of one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed writers, Janet Frame, it is indeed a lovely place, with an artsy flair to it . They even have a very impressive neo-classicist marble church, stuck away somewhere on a side road. I must have built up a craving for that sort of architecture, living in earthquakey Wellington, judging from the amount of photos I took.
Stage 4: Poolburn reservoir
I didn’t let the fact that I did not get out of Oamaru until late afternoon deter me from making my way all the way Poolburn reservoir in Central Otago that evening. Spending time sightseeing, videoing, sketching or relaxing during the day, and getting some road under my wheels in the evenings turned out to be a good rhythm on this trip, since it kept me from having to drive during the worst heat of day. And Central Otago is a pretty hot and dry place at this time of year!
Poolburn and the rocky slopes around it served as “Rohan” in “The Two Towers”, although at this time of year, the area reminded me more of the desert island of Atuan, from Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. Since one of the explicit purposes of this trip was to get some video footage, photos and sketches from as many “Lord of the Rings” filming locations as I could manage, I took the detour up into the highlands via Alexandra, instead of continuing on the straight road along the coast to the Catlins, where I was headed next.
I got to Poolburn a good while before sunset, and could take advantage of the gorgeous evening light for my filming and photos, so it was well worth the drive even though it was late in the day. I was considering parking my car somewhere next to a rock and spending the night, but the slope is quite exposed, and a bit intimidating somehow, so I drove back to the nearest little town that had a campsite marked on the map. The campsite proved non-existent, so I spent the night on a village commons next to a little river among the willow trees, which was fine enough and certainly more sheltered than up on the hill. Next morning I drove back halfway up the slope and spent a few hours sketching – future reference for Atuan – and I have to admit that these are the only sketches from this trip that I am at all happy with. Somehow I didn’t have the pencil inspiration this time round! Perhaps sometimes it *is better to just focus on three things, not five.
Stage 5: The Catlins
Even though I had a refreshing swim in a little blue lake just out of Alexandra in the afternoon, I was beginning to feel a great craving for a shower after a night spent sleeping in the rough – but when I got to Papatowai just before dark, the campsite I had been so looking forward to was closed. I had no inclination to either hurry on to the other side of the Catlins in a rush, or drive back, so I pitched my tent on the local picnic ground – at least there was a toilet and running water there, and several other people had already done the same. It was an exceedingly pretty spot for an emergency stopover – on a river estuary giving out to a wide sandy beach, with native bush growing all the way to the sand line.
The next morning dawned bright and sunny. A weekend in the Catlins was supposed to be my official “holiday” bit on this trip – there are no “Lord of the Rings” locations there. I was entirely looking forward to sitting on that beautiful beach all day reading "Lilith" . But by the time I had finished my long leisurely breakfast it had clouded over, and then it began to drizzle, and the temperature dropped and the wind came up and a regular southerly swept in – nothing but empty ocean between the Catlins and Antarctica! There goes my day on the beach, I thought with a sigh. I put on some more clothes and sat in my car and spent the afternoon doing all the little bush and waterfall walks in the area – then I backtracked to the DOC campsite at Tawanui and set up camp. Another night without a shower… well, at least it wasn’t raining any more. At night I lay awake and listened to the strange harmonic birdsong (a falling major second followed by a falling major third), and the river and the silence, and didn’t mind the weather one bit.
On my second day in the Catlins, I drove across to Curio Bay – famous for its dolphins and its penguins and its petrified woods. On the way, I took a side trip to an estuary wetland area, where I was the only human present, and I saw a white heron land on the other side of the river and start to fish. It felt like a personal gift.
Curio bay, on the other hand, may be very stunning, and I did get to watch a dolphin family cavorting off the beach, and I was very happy to finally see a few wild life penguins, after spending nearly six years in this country without ever spotting one. But on the whole, the place was a disappointment. The road through the Catlins has only recently been sealed, which means that there has been an increase in international tourism which the place seems to be entirely unprepared to cope with – from silly irresponsible people disturbing the penguins all day long, to turds among the flax hedges on the overpriced, ill kept campsite, the place filled me with nausea, and I was very glad to be on my way.
Stage 6: Invercargill to Manapouri
I felt strangely unclean after that night in Curio Bay, despite finally finding a shower, and it was a relief to head out to the empty clean beaches facing south – I had a chat with a fellow expat from Romania, who had recently settled in Gore, and got my first ever view of Steward Island. Then I made my way to Invercargill for a civilization pit stop – checking email, getting photos burned on CD, and shopping for some hiking equipment – before I drove on to Manapouri, where I was planning to spend a day preparing to walk the Kepler track.
Manapouri ranks very high on my list of favourite places in New Zealand. I had been there only once before, just after first arriving in the country, but I did remember the fragile looking but tough old American lady who runs – and by that I mean, runs – the campground. I broke just about every unwritten rule, from staying up and letting the light burn in the kitchen until past 11 pm, to doing my laundry late in the evening, to sleeping in and not checking out until the afternoon – but I think we mutually recognized a kindred spirit anyhow. She was full of moral fury because some newer developments in Manapouri were successfully advertising themselves with pretty images on the internet despite being in a distinctly less favourable situation than her own lakeside establishment, and I gave her a free website consultation to make up for all my misbehaviour.
The next day, I started on the Kepler track. I had wanted to walk that track ever since I first came to Manapouri six years ago, but had been doubtful about the wisdom of undertaking such a hike alone by myself, given my lack of experience and proper training. Well, I’ve been familiarizing myself with the outdoor conditions in New Zealand for nearly six years now, and at this time of year there were going to be plenty of other people on the track, so I overcame my fears and hesitations, and booked myself into the huts. But that profound experience deserves its own newsletter - so for now I'll say: To Be Continued.
arohanui, from Asni
Member of:
I've just written up my monthly newsletter, thought I'd share some of it here.
The full version with lots of images that aren't in my gallery (yet) can be viewed here:
www.asni.net/newsletter.html
There's also the brand new reader poll - would be cool if you could partake! Http://www.asni.net/newsletter_poll.php It's for everyone, not just regular subscribers. Of course, you could also *become* a subscriber...
SOUTH ISLAND PHOTO ALBUM
please view the newsletter online to see the images: www.asni.net/newsletter.html
Last newsletter, I promised I would tell you about my adventuresome trip to the South Island and show some brand new photos – so here is my account. To follow the itinerary, try typing the placenames into Google Earth!
Stage 1: Christchurch
To start off, I spend a couple of nights in Christchurch with my friend and fellow harper Helen Webby. Helen has recently bought her own house and garden, and it was really nice to visit her there and have a look at her ambitious gardening projects. I had a somewhat futile chat with the music advisor at Creative New Zealand (which left me wondering if their organization has access to the internet, and the information it can potentially provide about the past achievements of people such as myself), then spent a happy afternoon with another friend whom I hadn’t seen since I stayed at her house a few weeks after first arriving in New Zealand, and an evening discussing movie projects with a filmmaker friend of Helen’s. No photos though – although I should have, the Botanical gardens were in full rose blossom and absolutely gorgeous, and Christchurch seems a very pleasant place indeed, in early summer.
Stage 2: Back to the old Edoras location
No trip to Christchurch without a detour up the Rangitata valley, to Mt Potts station and Mt Sunday, where once the Edoras set was built. On the way out, in the middle of nowhere, at around 7 pm, I had a flat tyre… a calamity which in all my long years of driving, I had never had to deal with before. Good thing I’m smart and self-reliant, because if I had caved in to the temptation to wait for a helpful guy to come along and save me, I wouldn’t have gotten very far that night… it is not exactly a very frequented road, and as it turned out I was the last car on it heading out that evening.
As it was, I found a lovely sheltered spot by a little mountain river next to a sheep pasture, to set up camp, and spent a while playing my little harp (which for some reason I had felt compelled to drag along) to the stars, and made up a new song. The next morning I had a long breakfast, spent some time sketching, went for a walk but decided with some relief, that the river was too swollen to walk across and climb up Mt Sunday, took a number of photos, and was on the road again in time to get back to civilization – well, that is, Mt Somers - while the local mechanic was still up and about, so I could borrow an air pump for my spare tyre, so it would survive until I could find real civilization and a proper garage.
Stage 3: Oamaru
I spent the night just outside Oamaru – having decided to skip a detour to Twizel and Mt Cook on account of more urgent matters – and the next day, got myself a pair of brand new tyres, and spent about half my travel budget. It was well worth the while stopping over in Oamaru though – home town of one of New Zealand’s most acclaimed writers, Janet Frame, it is indeed a lovely place, with an artsy flair to it . They even have a very impressive neo-classicist marble church, stuck away somewhere on a side road. I must have built up a craving for that sort of architecture, living in earthquakey Wellington, judging from the amount of photos I took.
Stage 4: Poolburn reservoir
I didn’t let the fact that I did not get out of Oamaru until late afternoon deter me from making my way all the way Poolburn reservoir in Central Otago that evening. Spending time sightseeing, videoing, sketching or relaxing during the day, and getting some road under my wheels in the evenings turned out to be a good rhythm on this trip, since it kept me from having to drive during the worst heat of day. And Central Otago is a pretty hot and dry place at this time of year!
Poolburn and the rocky slopes around it served as “Rohan” in “The Two Towers”, although at this time of year, the area reminded me more of the desert island of Atuan, from Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea series. Since one of the explicit purposes of this trip was to get some video footage, photos and sketches from as many “Lord of the Rings” filming locations as I could manage, I took the detour up into the highlands via Alexandra, instead of continuing on the straight road along the coast to the Catlins, where I was headed next.
I got to Poolburn a good while before sunset, and could take advantage of the gorgeous evening light for my filming and photos, so it was well worth the drive even though it was late in the day. I was considering parking my car somewhere next to a rock and spending the night, but the slope is quite exposed, and a bit intimidating somehow, so I drove back to the nearest little town that had a campsite marked on the map. The campsite proved non-existent, so I spent the night on a village commons next to a little river among the willow trees, which was fine enough and certainly more sheltered than up on the hill. Next morning I drove back halfway up the slope and spent a few hours sketching – future reference for Atuan – and I have to admit that these are the only sketches from this trip that I am at all happy with. Somehow I didn’t have the pencil inspiration this time round! Perhaps sometimes it *is better to just focus on three things, not five.
Stage 5: The Catlins
Even though I had a refreshing swim in a little blue lake just out of Alexandra in the afternoon, I was beginning to feel a great craving for a shower after a night spent sleeping in the rough – but when I got to Papatowai just before dark, the campsite I had been so looking forward to was closed. I had no inclination to either hurry on to the other side of the Catlins in a rush, or drive back, so I pitched my tent on the local picnic ground – at least there was a toilet and running water there, and several other people had already done the same. It was an exceedingly pretty spot for an emergency stopover – on a river estuary giving out to a wide sandy beach, with native bush growing all the way to the sand line.
The next morning dawned bright and sunny. A weekend in the Catlins was supposed to be my official “holiday” bit on this trip – there are no “Lord of the Rings” locations there. I was entirely looking forward to sitting on that beautiful beach all day reading "Lilith" . But by the time I had finished my long leisurely breakfast it had clouded over, and then it began to drizzle, and the temperature dropped and the wind came up and a regular southerly swept in – nothing but empty ocean between the Catlins and Antarctica! There goes my day on the beach, I thought with a sigh. I put on some more clothes and sat in my car and spent the afternoon doing all the little bush and waterfall walks in the area – then I backtracked to the DOC campsite at Tawanui and set up camp. Another night without a shower… well, at least it wasn’t raining any more. At night I lay awake and listened to the strange harmonic birdsong (a falling major second followed by a falling major third), and the river and the silence, and didn’t mind the weather one bit.
On my second day in the Catlins, I drove across to Curio Bay – famous for its dolphins and its penguins and its petrified woods. On the way, I took a side trip to an estuary wetland area, where I was the only human present, and I saw a white heron land on the other side of the river and start to fish. It felt like a personal gift.
Curio bay, on the other hand, may be very stunning, and I did get to watch a dolphin family cavorting off the beach, and I was very happy to finally see a few wild life penguins, after spending nearly six years in this country without ever spotting one. But on the whole, the place was a disappointment. The road through the Catlins has only recently been sealed, which means that there has been an increase in international tourism which the place seems to be entirely unprepared to cope with – from silly irresponsible people disturbing the penguins all day long, to turds among the flax hedges on the overpriced, ill kept campsite, the place filled me with nausea, and I was very glad to be on my way.
Stage 6: Invercargill to Manapouri
I felt strangely unclean after that night in Curio Bay, despite finally finding a shower, and it was a relief to head out to the empty clean beaches facing south – I had a chat with a fellow expat from Romania, who had recently settled in Gore, and got my first ever view of Steward Island. Then I made my way to Invercargill for a civilization pit stop – checking email, getting photos burned on CD, and shopping for some hiking equipment – before I drove on to Manapouri, where I was planning to spend a day preparing to walk the Kepler track.
Manapouri ranks very high on my list of favourite places in New Zealand. I had been there only once before, just after first arriving in the country, but I did remember the fragile looking but tough old American lady who runs – and by that I mean, runs – the campground. I broke just about every unwritten rule, from staying up and letting the light burn in the kitchen until past 11 pm, to doing my laundry late in the evening, to sleeping in and not checking out until the afternoon – but I think we mutually recognized a kindred spirit anyhow. She was full of moral fury because some newer developments in Manapouri were successfully advertising themselves with pretty images on the internet despite being in a distinctly less favourable situation than her own lakeside establishment, and I gave her a free website consultation to make up for all my misbehaviour.
The next day, I started on the Kepler track. I had wanted to walk that track ever since I first came to Manapouri six years ago, but had been doubtful about the wisdom of undertaking such a hike alone by myself, given my lack of experience and proper training. Well, I’ve been familiarizing myself with the outdoor conditions in New Zealand for nearly six years now, and at this time of year there were going to be plenty of other people on the track, so I overcame my fears and hesitations, and booked myself into the huts. But that profound experience deserves its own newsletter - so for now I'll say: To Be Continued.
arohanui, from Asni
Member of:
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Hey you there!
1 min read
I'm still alive! And I've updated my gallery! With my best flippin' shots from my three and a half weeks on the South Island! If that isn't worth looking at, I don't know what is!
So bring it on. I mean, 344 pageviews, that's just pathetic.
Gotta advertise this place more.
Hey folks it's good stuff!
Member of:
So bring it on. I mean, 344 pageviews, that's just pathetic.
Gotta advertise this place more.
Hey folks it's good stuff!
Member of:
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In
Hello World
1 min read
Yup, brand new Deviant account - dedicated to selling prints of my photos.
I'll be uploading a selecting of images into the gallery over the next few days, starting with some images from Lord of the Rings filming locations in New Zealand, seeing that I'm a fan, they're beautiful, I got stacks of them, and they're possibly of interest to other people.
Check back soon!
Yes, these are for sale....
PS I just opened this account a couple of hours ago and I already got my first fave... go me!
I'll be uploading a selecting of images into the gallery over the next few days, starting with some images from Lord of the Rings filming locations in New Zealand, seeing that I'm a fan, they're beautiful, I got stacks of them, and they're possibly of interest to other people.
Check back soon!
Yes, these are for sale....
PS I just opened this account a couple of hours ago and I already got my first fave... go me!
Join the community to add your comment. Already a deviant? Log In