Mountains behind Glenorchy Township
Back in August last year I was invited to a 4 day Conference at Millbrook in Queenstown. Quite exciting as this conference is by invitation only and travels around to different parts of NZ and Queenstown is one of the most beautiful parts of the country and only 5-6 hrs drive away!
So I organised to see a customer on the way down, he was at the halfway point and a good place to stop for lunch and took the car down (having organised some leave after the conference) all ready for adventures.
Did a lot of driving – 1500 km over the 7 day trip – 900 of it in three days. Man was I pleased to get home!
The weather was lovely, there was enough snow to be very scenic and I had a really good time even if I almost got stuck in a bog. So be prepared for a series of photos from my Queenstown trip to show up over the next week as I work through processing them.
The above shot is taken of the mountain range up behind Glenorchy which is a small settlement at the top end of Lake Wakatipu. I had a delicious bowl of chicken soup at a cafe on my way back to Queenstown and it was a pretty place. Cold in winter but I could see it would be delightful to swim in the lake in the middle of summer.
Image processed in LR5 and then processed further in Nik Color Efex to remove a colour cast, tone up the whites and a polarising filter to brighten up the sky a bit. I was there late morning and the sun had yet to burn off all the morning cloud so you see drifts of it still lingering.
Top end of Lake Waktipu, Queenstown
This is the top end of Lake Wakatipu with all the peaks still cloud enshrouded, the lake a gorgeous green blue that you get with glacier fed lakes. The Queenstown – Glenorchy drive takes about an hour and is one of the prettiest drives I have had the pleasure of driving. Every corner has a new vista of stunning scenery. This was taken from a convenient lookout with room to park several cars, ideally placed for the best shots.
You can see the road meandering on in the distance on the right of the image, leading me on to more lovely scenery, of which I have many more photos to show you 🙂
I liked the first mountain pic so much I made it my new Blog Header, what do you think?
Learning to See Light 
Isn’t that view just the best!!!!!And those peaks behind Glenorchy on the way to Paradise!!!! We couldn’t get there as couldn’t take the rental thru the steep ford. NExt time want to walk around the small ponds just north of Glenorchy and go to the start of the Routeburn. Looking forward to the next ones you post.
I went to Paradise 🙂 LOTS of photos of that , tho I wasn’t game to take the Toyota across the third ford I met, it was just a bit too wide and too deep for me to take the chance. Same for the Rees Valley. Makes for a great day driving, but I really need a 4WD with higher clearance to go properly off road.
That top image is such a stunner!
Thankyou, its great scenery that makes a great image 🙂
Great photo and good choice for a header image.
Thanks, time for a change 🙂
Beautiful images… I have seen your beautiful country through documentaries only 🙂
Thankyou, I could say the same for yours, tho I also experience it through the eyes of other photographers.
Yea, that’s true 🙂
But I was awestruck with the natural beauty of NZ when I saw a program in Discovery or NatGeo on Milford Sound 🙂
That’s there at the top of my wish list…
Yes Milford is pretty stunning – you should check out my Catlins series of posts from a couple of years ago, its pretty amazing too and a bit more accessible than Milford.
Sure, I’ll check it out 🙂