Two kite surfers from West Sussex took advantage of strong winds on the south coast of England to jump over Worthing pier…

We went for a long walk in the beautiful mountains by Makaroa, a small town on the way to Haast Pass.

Afterwards we came back to Wanaka, drank too much wine and went partying.

The hangover flattened me for a day at least. I think I’m getting old.

In other exciting news, my little digicam has started putting weird multi coloured lines like an ancient TV on some of the images…time to start looking for a new one…

Vineyards, wine, lakes, cows, alpine deserts, more wine, movies, researching the family tree, packing and planning…

A chilled weekend.

In New Zealand the views are so good that even the cows go to the beach…

Tucked away in central Otago is a place called Bannockburn. It is an arid alpine desert which receives a huge amount of sun each year and very little rain. As a consequence it produces some of the best wine in New Zealand. It was also torn apart by gold hunters for years and rumour has it that there is still plenty of gold left in the hills.

I have been down there a few times recently to shoot plots of very expensive land…

About an hour from Wanaka along a dirt track and through 9 fords is a car park on the edge of Mount Aspiring National Park at a place called Strawberry Flats.
From the car park, tracks lead up the Matukituki valley into the huge national park, which apparently covers approximately 3,555 km².

We only went about 3 hours in and the same back out, as Flo had to work the next day, but there are huts where you can stay overnight further in which we are going to head to next time.
Although we only saw a tiny corner of the park, the area was incredibly unspoilt and it was pretty refreshing to get away from everything for the day…

Moved house: Check. Business picking up: Check. Summer arrived?: Check.

Flo finished 9 days of 5am work in a row: Check.

Massive end of year trip pretty much organised: Check.

Take a breath.

Right lets go have some fun….over to Queenstown for Flo’s birthday weekend.

It was the final day of the season at The Remarkables, and then we went Jet boating…

It’s been a quiet couple of months, but suddenly things have started rolling at a quicker pace…

3 big jobs, last days of the mountain for this season, we’re moving house, and just had some incredibly kind help to make the end of year plans work out (thank you, thank you, thank you!)…it’s a busy week!

This is the location for one job I just shot for a new company (house is on the right)

September spring storms have been hammering NZ all month (think April showers in the northern hemisphere only more potent) and with the temperature yoyoing up and down, its been doing weird things to the mountains…

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…

Queenstown birthday road trip…5 star hotel pressie from Flo…epic scenery…great food…perfect weather…happy days…