49.8

So Damien and I had arrived at Wharariki Beach at the very top of the island to shoot star trails over the glorious ArchWay Islands. This, however, wasn’t to be as we found ourselves hopelessly lost admist fields of sheep under a full moon in the early hours of the morning. Defeated and exhausted we returned to the campervan and caught an hours sleep before getting up for sunrise. Those photos to come.

The next day we returned to civilisation and checked the weather report. Moeraki was looking good. Anyone familiar with New Zealands south island will know that Moeraki Boulders is on the southern end of the east coast, not exactly close to Golden Bay. It was, in-fact, 11hrs south of where we had been desperately lost the night before.

This didn’t phase us and in the early hours of the next day we were parked comfortably in the carpark of Moeraki Boulders visitors centre ready to catch another 2hrs quick sleep before sunrise. Before going to sleep we were a little worried as the rain was coming down hard but experience has shown many times before that unsettled weather brings great photography conditions and the drive had been full of mixed clear and stormy clouds so all was not lost.

Just as we had hoped the sunrise that morning was simply remarkable and we were now perfectly positioned to head further south for day 3 at the Caitlins Rain forest.