twoguineapigs Pet Photography Studio: ducks

It has been a couple of days since we got back from our brief trip to New Zealand. It seemed that all the months of planning and organising for our wedding came and went in a blink of an eye. We had a few days in Wellington to finalise a few things before our big day. At the end of it, Stephen and I were too exhausted to even order hot chocolate from room service.

We stopped at Queenstown for a few days before heading back to Sydney - for our supposed honeymoon. It was off-peak season but this town does not sleep - noodle bars are opened till midnight and you see people about almost 24/7.

Arrowtown was 20 minutes drive away from Queenstown. We popped over for lunch at a French Cafe (there seems to be a lot of French residing in Queenstown-Arrowtown) and visited the historical site where the first Chinese settlements were during the gold rush in 1865.

We drove up to Wanaka via Crown Range-Cardrona Valley Road, with the Crown Range Road being the highest main road in New Zealand with an altitude of 1121 metres. It was drizzling while we took the drive and I was disappointed not to spot the odd kea along the way. (or it could be a blessing considering how notoriously curious they can be). But the mountain views were exceptionally spectaculor.

While we were there, the weather switched between sunny to overcast and very cloudy. When it was not overcast, the sky was so blue that I had to check my camera and monitor calibration a few times to make sure that the camera recorded the right tones. I got into photographing skyscapes pretty quickly - who could have resisted those beautiful blue skies and marshmallow clouds.

I must say New Zealand sports some seriously spectacular scenes. People are generous and friendly. And the wildlife is exceptionally friendly — try being by yourself for awhile without having the odd duck coming up to greet and inspect you. People do travel with their pets, dogs especially, although I got the feeling that dogs aren’t that welcome in most touristy places in the South Island.

Hope you enjoy these images — do leave us a comment if you see something you like as it's important for me to know.

Note:
Sadly, Wiggley did not pull through - 4 days into our trip his condition deteriorated and our carer had to admit him to the vet hospital. Despite all the vet could do for him, Wiggley could not hang on long enough for our return. Life can be cruel sometimes. I’ll reserve to post about Wiggley for another time.