The Buller: a different mood
Last week my son stayed for a few days. As he is a good kayaker and knows the Buller and Murchison region well, it was a good opportunity to scout out access points (for photography, not kayaking I hasten to add). We’ve had quite a lot of rain over the past couple of weeks, so the river was in flood. So, armed with Graham Charles’ book “New Zealand Whitewater”, we set off.
Buller River again
My wife returned from Greymouth a couple of weeks ago saying how beautiful the Buller River is looking at the moment. Friday was the first chance I had to check it out. She was right.
The trip was a bit mixed. I found a great place to stay, the Riverview Holiday Park in Murchison. Reasonably priced, clean and very helpful staff. Even had wireless Internet. I think will be a good base for future photographic trips this region. The pub meal at the Commercial Hotel was good too. They were proudly showing the rugby on TV, not the Royal wedding. The royalists were apparently across the road in Murchison’s other pub, all dressed up. The only blot on the evening was the rugby result: the Auckland Blues beat the Otago Highlanders (due mainly to poor refereeing decisions, of course).
The Buller River is not easy to photograph, especially in the Buller Gorge itself. I haven’t yet found a good access spot yielding prize-winning photographs. More effort required here. Still, there were some very colourful photos:
Buller River
Last week I went out on a photo expedition, determined to get some good shots of a block of larch about 70km south of Nelson. They are looking great right now in their late autumn colours, but I’m running out of time to catch them. So I planned the day quite carefully, using the “Photographers’ Ephemeris” to check out the sunrise and sunlight angles at various times of the day. The larches look their best in late afternoon light, but there was a good chance of some early morning mists creating other opportunities. And so it proved, along the Buller River near Kawatiri:
