NEW ZEALAND ADVENTURES - JET BOATING

Jet boating is very much a part of the extreme adventure cuture of Queenstown and on our way to check in to our hotel we spotted the jet boats carving up the Shotover River, which is located about 10 mintues from the centre of Queenstown. These boats take you on a ride through the Shotover River Canyons at up to 85km/h (51mi/h) in, at times, 10cm (4in) of water.

Shotover River Jet Boating © Rachel Pitt

Shotover Jet Boating © Rachel Pitt

 Whilst this was quite interesting to watch. I have to admit the whipering, turquiose coloured waters had originally caught my attention from atop the high river overpass. I knew I just had to get down there and shoot it.

Heading down to get the shot © Rachel Pitt

There were many layers to be had in this frame and I knew that I needed to watch out for oncoming jet boats whilst I was composing it.
Movement in the water was key, not to mention some other foreground subject to add some other interest. Plus I had the forest on other side of the stream demanding attention too. I snapped a number of exposures and I have included my favourite below. At only a 1.6 sec shutted speed, you can see just how quickly the water was moving. The finished image has a much more serene atmosphere than what was true when shooting the image. Especially when dodging the spray of drifting Jet boats.
I hope you like it.

Catchya
Josh :)

Shotover River, NZ © Josh Pitt

NEW ZEALAND ADVENTURES - MILFORD SOUND

Milford Sound, located on the west coast of New Zealands south island. Apparently our kiwi neighbours made a number of errors when naming this area.
Their first mistake was calling Milford Sound - Milford Sound. It is not actually a "Sound" at all. But rather a fjord. Which means it was formed by glacial activity rather than the ocean.
Now, to make amends for this oversight, our NZ friends decided to fix their error by calling to entire region Fiordland. There in lies their second error. "Fiord" is a Norwegian word, which is actually spelt "Fjord". Oops. Yep. Nevermind.

On this leg of our journey we stayed a couples of nights in a small town about 2-2.5 hours away from Milford Sound, called Te Anau. Which I believe is pronounced Tee-Are-Now. It is such a great small town, not to mention FREE WIFI!

Disappointingly, on this occasion, we couldn't go or stay for a sunrise or sunset. But instead do more the touristy thing and take in a cruise. Which was awesome! We were lucky enough to have a small pod of dolphins start swimming next to us, which apparently isn't too common around there. We also got to see some lazy male sea lions sunbaking on the rocks, learnt some history and interesting facts of the area. Not to mention saw some great scenery as we went. One of which was the Stirling Falls (pictured below), which deceivingly is approximately 155m (511ft) tall.
We were told that this is one of the few remaining waterfalls in Milford Sound, that is fed by melting glaciers. It won't be long until this majectic fall with have to rely on rainfall alone to operate.

It just goes to show that you should cease the day. As what's here today may not be tomorrow.

Stirling Falls, Milford Sound NZ