NZ Day 2

Day 2.
Was woken up by my mom, telling me about it being foggy and that we couldnt get the sunset.

I Resisted the urge to sleep some more, and with some effort, managed to stay awake and stone.

i took a peek out the window, indeed, it was foggy.

The fog slowly cleared up as the sun rose higher in the sky, which opened the opportunity for me to take photos of this famous lake (of course, i hadnt known it was famous at that time). Soloed it out in the cold, struggling with the useless
gloves trying to change my lenses as quickly as possible.


grey. boring. flat. i prayed for better weather.


damn should have moved it to the left a little. the trees too chopped off.


trees and more trees in the distance.



My mom and sis eventually got their junk out of the hotel and drove the car to pick me up. That was where i got my chance again. This time i had to go on the main road for a while. somewhat cool.

Anyway, we drove down the gravel path next to the lake. Took some pictures there and was about to continue on our way to queenstown when the sun decided to show and the fog decided to pack up.


The difference the sun made was huge. The colours were more vibrant and the shadows cast were just beautiful. Now we were getting to see why this lake was famous.

Got out and took more pictures before moving a few more meters and taking more photos again.

simply beautiful that place, plus the sun made tons of difference. now we could see the distant snowcapped mountains and see quite far across the lake. Its really like those shows with cgi mountians and scenery. just that this was real.


yeah, my sis is totally wrapped up.


the sun comes to our rescue.


see what i mean by colours coming alive. the sun just makes a whole lot of difference.




the colour of the water is starting to show. turquoise


there were birds everywhere. my first real attempt at nature photography..


and i absolutely fail.


it was only after the sun came out and the mountians behind showed that i realised that this was the famous church in new zealand. i remembered the first time i saw a photo of this church while browsing flickr and i said to myself, if only i could go there. total wish come true there.


here shot with the wide angle. the crooked tree really helped with the "fish eye" effect.


i love this shot.


a recreation of the photo i saw on flickr.. hahah






someone took this for us. It was close to 12 so people started showing up and tour busses started arriving at the church.


chair.


totally looks like a painting.






and my mom was wondering why im so facinated by chairs.




beautiful.


an example of why sometimes you see me with flash on a bright day.


this picture was shot with flash.






ugly looking cars parked near the nice church. stupid.


they had nice looking buildings there too..


their highways go through the towns.


shot through the windshield.

Pictures still dont do the scenery justice, you just had to see it for yourself. Real life.

Decided to sit on the cars hood and drive a few meters on it too. Yup, we are deprived Singaporeans.

Ate at some random nearby store before setting off for our next destination, which was about
a 100 plus plus km away.

Got to help out my mom in driving in more than one ways (you know what i actually mean), It was totally fun, and did an average of 110, sometimes hitting 140+ when overtaking..

Stopped at random places and took some pictures too. Somehow we were way behind time and it started to get dark while we were still driving. Soon we were driving at night and it was a scary yet exciting experience.


shot with wide angle. at some random location.




lol, we were like scrambling around trying to do this shot quickly before another car came


shot with flash, if not we would be black.


the mountains in the distance.


we pass by another lake.


really nice scene...


stopped for pictures again. this taken with a wide angle.


taken with the zoom lens.


too bad the sun was already setting. the sun sets at a really early time of 5pm.


yeah, if you happen to visit nz, go on this highway.




yup. it was lake pukaki. we stopped at this dam place and got out to snap more pictures.


damn i tilted the camera.

Had to put the car on constant high beam to see in front and it was really scary when those cargo trucks come around a corner suddenly. But it was totally cool nonetheless.

When we were up in the higher regions winding around and between mountians, it started to rain and the tempreature outside dropped really low. The windscreen started to fog up and i absolutely could not make out the road infront whenever some passing car highbeamed me. My mom was constantly wiping the inside of the windshield to prevent it from fogging up totally.

Later would i find out that there was this setting on the cars air conditioning nob that blew hot air onto the windshield, preventing fog buildup.

The rain started to freeze over and the road became an icy road. Not that it made any difference really, the car did not skid around at all. I guess there was too little rain.

We stopped at this gravel road shoulder somewhere as the scene was really nice and there was snow nearby. Yup, its the first time i've touched snow, though it was a little harder than ice kachang. (the only other time i've been close to touching snow was at Israel, when it started to hail. it reminded me of this old ice cream called solaris or something.)


icy roads.


they had really helpful signs like this. their speeds are just in the right range, not too fast such that things started sliding around in the car, and not too slow.

Eventually, we reached the town of cromwell and nearly got lost there by turning into some lane to 'break' in some poor dudes yard.

Eventually, we found the right highway and we drove all the way and checked in to our hotel.


The awesome warmth of the fireplace.

Went out in search of dinner and found one barely open. Ordered beef and some pizza, both
of which tasted really good. mmmmm.


ready for dinner..


a large steak and a large pan of pizza for dinner.

We drove home, parked the car, before going out to the nearby bend in the road to take photos.

The moonlight really helped as we still could see the mountains and the lake in the distance.
experimented with long exposures too, which produced some cool results.


the weird stuff you can do with flash and exposure. unfortunately, this is also one of the pictures that i composed the background properly. it was really dark in real life, couldnt see the lake and could only guess at how to compose the shot.

Slept really late as i indulged in some lousy tv programmes that night. sigh...tv.