10/06/2023
Although it had been a blue bird day, it was starting to cloud in. However the weather forecast was for the clouds to dissipate about 9pm so I headed up the Mangorei track early afternoon, hopefully to get some sunset shots and later some astro shots.
As I was heading up, numerous people that I met coming down said that the tarns was mostly clouded in with visibility coming and going. I arrived to a completely clouded plateau but I decided to head to my location (the Ahukawakawa swamp) anyway, surprisingly the track had been completely refurbished with board walk most of the way……last time I was there I was
tramping through mud and snow. As I descended down to the swamp the mountain started to clear so I got the camera out and clicked a couple of images, however by the time I got to the swamp the mountain was clouding in again.
It was quite cold so I stripped off my wet clothes and put some dry clothes on and then lay on the board walk waiting to see if the cloud would clear. Finally the cloud dissipated, however just as quickly, the fog rolled in as it has done many times before. I lay there looking up at the sky until dark crept in, the fog was sparse enough that I could see the stars through it and I realized that above the fog the sky was clear…..I needed to gain some height to get above the fog.
I made a decision to change location to the Tarns. I stripped my dry clothes off again and put my wet clothes back on so I still had some dry clothes when I stopped to take photos at the tarns and then started the arduous climb back out of the Ahukawakawa swamp. It wasn't long before I had climbed through the fog and was greeted with crystal clear skies with not a breath of wind. Excitement was growing as I knew at around 9pm the milky way alignment would be arched over the mountain and one of my bucket list shots was a pano with the milky way arch over the mountain and reflected in the calm water of the tarns.
I reached the tarns and was surprised to have it all to myself…for a short time anyway.
I changed back into my dry clothes, set up, took a few test shots (the reflection was so clear) and started shooting my first 20 image pano with my Sigma 14mm lens. I changed to my 35mm Tamron lens and shot another pano, this time a 60 image pano, as I was shooting it the tarns
was starting to freeze over and the reflection was disappearing. If I stood too long, my boots were starting to stick to the board walk and by the time I had finished all my gear was iced over.
After 6 hrs of tramping with a total of 11hrs on the mountain it was time to head home and I finally got home at 12.20am.
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