7.) Photovan does Port Waikato

January 2008 :
Since Monday was a public holiday here I decided to see something new [to me ] .
I visited "Port Waikato " where the Waikato river empties into the sea on the north island of New Zealand ...... I stayed at this interesting campsite ...





There was a walk onto the sand dunes across the road .








and the sun was at a nice angle ...











Some interesting shapes .






2 minutes down the road was the main beach ...





and some nice rock formations .....





The sun was starting to set ..





nice beaches





and nice rock formations .



did I mention nice rock formations ?





The main beach is a bit to the right of this with no rock formations





behind these rocks ....





As the sun started to set I put the D50 , 10-20mm combination on the tripod and inserted a graduated filter in front of the polarizer ....





Then I tried a gold filter





and a Tobacco filter ....



more interesting than the boring beach on the right ....





but I wouldn't mind spending some more time on the sand dunes in late afternoon sunlight next time ...





the country is very dry at the moment and I haven't seen so much brown grass before in the 6 years I have lived here ....





I've grown rather fond of my Sigma 10-20mm lens ..

There was this one image that made me feel suddenly relaxed .....



and when I checked I had taken it at 1 second hence the smoother water . I will have to do some more slow water shots of the beach , maybe in a few days since I am off till Thursday and tomorrow [ Sunday ] I will be leaving for the Taranaki region and may climb Mount Egmont [ mt Fiji in "the last samurai " ] , then I'll cruise around the coast ...