Lake Wanaka is a bit of a small town bubble sometimes so we went to Lake Hawea for a change which is another huge lake covering 141 km² and is about 20 minutes away from Wanaka.

I find the textures on beaches amazingly hypnotic, (mainly cos I want to know how the hell the patterns formed like that?) to the point where I wasted long periods of time crawling around in the sand taking macro photos of different textures, with Flo getting very bored.

I then tried to wake her up by taking her biking in the woods. She is pretty accomplished on the roads after years of cycling in London, but her offroad skills still need a little bit of work…

I spent ages explaining how to lean back and ride around a banked corner and then got her to try. She got a little heavy on the front brake and nose wheelied out of the corner towards where I was waiting, at which point she tried to grab me to slow down. Instead of actually slowing down she closelined me around the neck, lifting me off my feet, and I went off the side of the trail backwards in to the woods with her and both bikes on top of me…

Other than me destroying yet another phone, we both survived with only a few cuts and bruises, so now we have a new challenge for the summer… Next time we will have padding, full face helmets and I will be standing much further back though.

No photos of the biking for obvious reasons, but here are lots of beach/texture photos to bore people with…

The boys have been digging trails in the woods…

Mikey hitting the stepup…

We went to see a car in Queenstown (an hour down the road) but didnt buy it so stopped by the skate bowl and park (seriously big tight bowl – def going back when its dry) and the bike park up in the hills (ohh so going back there when its dry too cos the jumps are massssive and the backdrop is amazing…)

Parts of Queenstown really remind me of West Vancouver with the pine forests and houses up on the slopes leading down to the water.

Everywhere is very soggy right now, huge rainstorms most mornings but means lots of snow falling higher up so def going up tomorrow.

Check out Danny Macaskill in Edinburgh killing it on a single speeder…highlight would have to be the backwards manual…. (stick with it, starts mellow and gets better)

More on him here

I had a couple of good opportunities to shoot this week so got the flashes out….

1) Lismore Bike Park

2) RedRock Skate Park fundraiser jam