West of Waitomo

Yesterday was so rainy that I could only work inside on the computer. I decided that since the storm was so widespread, I might as well just stay holed up in Waitomo (pun intended). Today, the weather was still mixed, but I did manage to catch a few breaks and get something done. I had three specific places West of Waitomo that I wanted to go. There’s a Natural Bridge, a Waterfall and a Cave all close together. I was hoping that I might be able to do some flying with the DJI Inspire Quad at the Natural Bridge and the Waterfall, but neither place worked out for Aerials. The Natural Bridge is in a narrow canyon with a wall to wall river. It also has wooden walkways to get to the area and though they are handy for access, they wouldn’t look good in the shot. The Waterfall would have worked really well if there wasn’t so much water thundering over it. The nonstop rains had cranked the river’s flow up to 11 and there was so much mist coming off the waterfall that I could barely get two or three still frames before my lens misted over.

Piri Piri Cave is just a single room. The stairway from the surface lead straight down about 100 ft to a couple of viewing platforms. It was very dark inside, but I had my headlamp so I felt like a regular spelunker. I did one shot of the cave ceiling and used my headlamp to “paint with light” during a long exposure (on tripod, of course). I tried several and finally got one that looked OK. I was about to leave when I got to thinking that maybe there were Glow Worms on the far side of the ceiling (not). So I pointed my camera over that way and tried a 10 second exposure with the lens wide open at ISO 12,800. No Glow Worms, but holy moly, I actually overexposed the cave! I could barely see anything with my eyes, but the Sony A7R. I couldn’t believe it. It looked better than my paint with light version. So I tried a few more and finally wound up with a 10 second exposure at f8, ISO 6400. I was down there long enough for my eyes to become dark adapted, and I still could barely see bits of the cave wall here and there.

When I left Piri Piri Cave, I got a couple more scenic shots at an overlook and then headed for Lake Taupo. As soon as I hit the road, the rains started up again. I hit a couple major downpours on the way and when I arrived at Lake Taupo, the sky in the distance was as black as mortal sin. But there was sunshine breaking through behind me and it made one of the nicest Rainbows I’ve seen in a long time.


This is the trailhead leading to Mangapohui Natural Bridge.


The canyon that Mangapohui Natural Bridge spans is filled side to side with a small river.


This is Mangapohui Natural Bridge. It is actually the last remnant of a cave.


Loads of nice Tree Ferns on the trail.


This is Marokopa Falls. There was so much water coming down from the recent heavy rains that it was misting sideways making it very difficult to photograph without getting the lens wet.


Another Fern.


This is my natural light long exposure of Piri Piri Cave. I swear that there was not enough light in the cave to see your hand in front of your face. I did this time exposure hoping to see some little blue specks of light from Glow Worms on a black background, so I was shocked when this is what I got.


This scenic overlook was fogged in with low rain clouds when I went by on the way to Mangapohui Natural Bridge. On the way back, I had a nice little hole in the sky so I stopped to shoot it.


The small sun breaks in the clouds were giving the countryside a nice spotlight effect. Look! Those are Sheep! Who would have imagined that I’d see Sheep in NZ?


When I arrived at Lake Taupo, I was blessed with this gorgeous rainbow. The shortly after, I was dumped on by those nasty looking black clouds.