The photovan has been sitting idle for too long so on the Friday of the long weekend I decided to do some exploring along the back-roads from Raglan to Port Waikato , via Waikaretu .
I used the trusty D40 and 18-200 lens for many of the shots .
It's only about 100 km but much of the time you are only going about 40km/hr so it takes a while - I saw two other cars the entire trip .
The beach is well worth exploring , lots of rock formations and interesting places to explore .
The Panasonic did a good job , even when it started raining I could carry on taking pictures - I eventually made my way back to the campground .
In the evening I settled down with a cup of coffee and a movie ......
As it got dark I realized I had the tripod tucked away in the storage box - I mounted the D50 and fisheye lens on it and took some snaps of the stars , including a few trails of the planes landing at the nearby airport .
I headed back home the next morning , one day I will go back and spend more time on the beach and hopefully get better light :)
I used the trusty D40 and 18-200 lens for many of the shots .
There is a side trip 1.4km from the intersection to Port Waikato that goes to the Nikau caves and cafe , it was closed I think due to the religious holiday .
There is some reasonable scenery along the way with occasional glimpses of the sea .
I had the 10.5mm fisheye lens on the D50 which helped get in a lot of the scenery :)
There are many old buildings and vehicles rotting away on the farms .
And some who just don't care about anything .....
After getting back on the highway you have to drive through Awful Auckland , cars , people , buildings , more cars and people ..... but as you work your way to Huia you leave all of that behind and the scenery starts to get better .
The 10.5 was very useful for some of the pictures , including some taken from the drivers seat .
The road gets narrow and windy , the rain didn't help either .
At the end of the road is the Whatipu campsite - nothing fancy but a good location .
I just bought the Panasonic FT3 compact and it was used for the rest of these pictures - it turned out really handy .
There is a short walk along the beach to the caves and a campsite as well .
There is a camp site near the caves as well ....
And then I headed back past the camp ground again and toward the beach .
In the evening I settled down with a cup of coffee and a movie ......