Hawksburn Road 4WD Track

January 20, 2013

Another outing for the truck and bike this time The Hawksburn Road, which begins at Bannockburn and skirts across the Cairnmuir Rages to finish up in Clyde. The drive has no real tests although there are plenty of side loops to have a play at. At one point on the road you need to take a right turn, otherwise you'll end up back in Bannockburn, basically follow the pylons! Theres also some very good downhill MTB single tracks dropping down into Clyde. 20km. 2 hours. Crew: Lee & Sam. 20th January 2013

Carricktown 4WD Track

December 15, 2012

This trip is a little bit more serious but luckily we've had some dry weather, i've been told it can easily wash out. The drive is defiantly alot of fun with some interesting sections, we took the truck and Sams bike. The track begins through a gate just at the top end of Quartzville road from here on in the drive climbs and climbs. Along the way are the remains of the old Carricktown and a bit further a short walk heads down towards the Young Austraillan Waterwheel. Eventually we crossed onto the Nevis Road for the return trip back towards Bannockburn. 14km. 1 hour (2 hour round trip). Crew: Lee, Emma & Sam. 15 Dec 2012

Nearly the end of the trip, avoid next time!

Thomson Gorge Road 4WD Track

November 4, 2012

Our first true 4wd trip albeit fairly easy one, with lots of gates! The drive passes over the Dunstan mountains and past several old gold working sites, the 'Come In Time' Stamper battery is worth the stop and a torch would have been handy for the old mine shaft. 30km. 2 hour drive. Crew: Lee & Sam. 4 Nov 2012

HDR photography

October 8, 2012

I've re-discovered the joys of my DSLR, its been tucked away for the past year which is a shame because its a really nice camera. But anyway I remember playing about with some HDR photos (High Dynamic Range images) before I tucked it away and I've got the bug again. I'm going to give myself a wee project to document Wanaka in HDR so watch this space I'll hopefully get some photos up. If you have no idea what HDR is, and to be honest i'm still figuring out what its all about, here is a before and after image which I took working in Queenstown and fiddled about with it to give the effect of an HDR image. Its not a true HDR image mind, it was a single shot taken on my compact camera but you can get the idea...even if it is 'over done'

Before

After (click for larger image)

Today!

August 19, 2012

Here's a short video of mine and Sams day up a Treble Cone, it was a beautiful blue bird day perfect for a ski and a fly. Enjoyhttp://youtu.be/tqpkYSLu_xE

Remarkables Grand Traverse - Remarkables Conservation Area

April 14, 2012

The Remarkables Grand Traverse is probably one of the best and most accessible alpine routes in New Zealand and something I'd been meaning to do for sometime, so off we went. We pulled up at the base building of Remarkable Ski area at about 8:30am. We headed up over onto the West face and joined Queens Drive, after following the loose path underneath the spectacular rock walls we came to the boulder field and began the tricky accent up to the ridge line, reaching the helipad. From here it was pure fun along the ridge to Double and Single Cone, we free climbed most of the route but decided to rope the slaps up to the north peak of Double Cone. We descended down the south couloir and headed back along Lake Alta then back to the base building, getting to the car around 3pm. Lee & Sam. 6-7hour return. 14th April 2012

Double Italian Hitch - no belay plate I take it then for Sam!

Mt Brewster - Mount Aspiring National Park

April 7, 2012

This trip was a scope to climb Mount Brewster along with a general explore. We left the car at the layby and then began the long steep hike to Brewster Hut. Emma's back was causing a few issues so I offered to carry her bag to the hut! At the hut we stopped for a bite to before carrying on to the ridge line between Mt Brewster and Mt Armstrong, we reached the Unnamed Peak at 2023m. From the ridge the sight of the lake at the foot of the glacier looked too tempting to pass, so down we went for a ganders and swim!!! Crew: Lee, Emma, Sam, Simon. 4th April 2012. 9hrs

Unnamed Peak and Mt Brewster in background

Roys Peak & Waterfall Creek - The Stack Conservation Area

March 17, 2012

Waterfall Creek is visible from the back of our house and would be the view point from where I scoured the slopes of Roys Peak searching for David and Ben. Earlier that day they slogged up Roys Peak with the intention of descending down Waterfall Creek, all went well until David slipped down a waterfall and landed on his back, which resulted in two weeks of sofa bound action. The outing was abit of a disaster and a descent of Waterfall Creek laid low for a while.

By now David was back in the UK, Sam and I decide now is the time, lets hit it. We climbed Roys Peak via the more direct route along with Calla and Marsh and reached the summit within 2.5 hours. We made our way towards Alta Peak, down to the saddle then dropped into the head of the valley where the source of the Creek began. At the start the water was a mere trickle but the vegetation was thick, jungle like almost, a machete would have proved useful!

We eventually came to the point we figured was David's brokeback moment, a short 5m waterfall followed by a larger 20m drop...luckily he fell on the shorter drop. Well this time we had a rope to help make the descent a wee bit easier, Sam made the abseil on a single line while I scurried round 'the veg' to the bottom of the fall. From here on in the Creek continued to flow with several more vertical drops, none of which required ropes. On and on we pushed wading though the pools wondering where our get out point was, a fence line we had scoped on a earlier trip. We must have past it because all of a sudden Lake Wanaka seem rather close, and we were stood at the head of the bottom falls, a series of large drop flowing with water. A descent down the falls would be possible with the rope but anchors may have proved difficult so we sidled around the falls and dropped to the bottom of the Creek. We had done it, made a full descent of Waterfall Creek, the full outing may had taken 8 hours but we had ticked it off in style...now to tell David the good news

Enjoy the video

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQg_tEIipwQ&w=560&h=315]

Robinson Creek

February 12, 2012

Another fine weekend for another fine canyon. This time Robinson Creek, just a few hops along from our last adventure. Robinson's Creek is relatively short, starting with an open upper section of pools, jumps and swims then closing in for several drops.

Me and Sam had arranged to meet up with Julie Burton, a canyoning enthusiast from Australia who visits NZ once a year to tackle some descents, she is good friends with a core team of NZ canyoneers who devote their time exploring new unexplored canyons.

We picked Julie up form Hawea and headed along Hasst Pass to the base of Robinsons. After about 25mins climbing through the stunning NZ bush we reached the start of our descent.

The canyon began with and icy fresh jump into a crystal clear pool, followed by a small abseil and scrambles over log jams. The canyon then closed in for several drops, most of which we abseiled. The highlight of the trip is the main descent, a 25m pitch down a waterfall into a giant cavern. Spectacular stuff. Video to follow shortly.

Sam on first Abseil

Julie descending another pitch

Sam leaping off

Julie about to rappel the 25m pitch

Bottom on giant cavern

Sam in Giant cavern

exit just a few steps away form the car

Cross Creek

January 29, 2012

After a steady morning we finally set off to what is known as 'one of the most fun canyons in NZ' Cross Creek. Situated along the Hasst Pass about 1 hour from Wanaka, the canyon consists of back to back jumps and slides into crystal clear pools set in a very Jurassic looking environment.

We've decided to make Canyoning one of our main past times, after all New Zealand holds the spot for one of the best Canyoning locations in the world, particularly here in the Mount Aspiring National Park. So this was going to be our first full decent of a local canyon.

We arrived at the base of Cross Creek, quickly kitted up and headed into the mossy wonderland of the Hasst Pass Native Bush. After abit of "are we on the right path" we finally dropped down into the creek.

Entrance into Creek

The canyon has three sections upper/middle/bottom. Most people begin from the middle as this holds the most fun, but we fancied some larger abseils, after all we had just bought a new 300ft rope between us for our antics.

First Abseil

First Abseil

The upper section consists of several rappels, the main one being the 22m drop at the start. I lead the way and the other guys followed me into the depths. Dave looked abit edgy at first since this was his first canyon back after his incident in Waterfall Creek, which had resulted in him being out of actions for the past 3 weeks with a bad back and muscle spasms.

We slowly moved through the upper section carting the rope around the log jams and setting up anchors before entering the middle section, where we began to don the rope in replacement for jumps, down climbs and arse slides. We soon arrive at our first little halt, a 6m jump where I caught up with Sam and Dave pondering how to jump out. I moved them to one side and leaped off the edge..."all good lads, come on down"

Halt

The fun from that point just rolled on. A few meters down we were greeted by another 6m jump followed by a 6m arse slide all of which ended into emerald green pools. We passed under an arch to yet another slide which dropped off into a pool, we were loving it but was well aware of what lay ahead.

We arrive at the biggy, 11m jump from the top of a waterfall. It would have been a fairly straight forward jump but turned out to be one that would shut Sam down. Dave went first, scrambling down to the right of the falls onto a slippy mossy ledge just big enough to stand both feet on. Looking down he realised that the rock under the falls bulged out meaning that a rather firm push off the slimy ledge was required. Dave leaped off and Sam stepped down. After 2mins of hesitation Sam stepped back up again, then back down, basically s****ing his pants. He stepped back up once more so i slipped in and leaped off. A few minutes later Sam finally manned up and flopped down into the pool below.

Biggy

The rest of the canyon continued with prime slides and jumps into pools now lit up by the sunlight. Before we knew it we had hit the end of the canyon where the creek passed under the road bridge. One last jump remained on the other side of the bridge which finished off our trip nicely

Emerald Green Pools

Back to Wanaka we returned, once we had finally got Sams wetsuit off!

Heres the video

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG7SwJsAFdE&w=480&h=360]