Velvia 50; pictures taken 15 and 16 Feb 2003.
Frames 1 through 5 are Maruia Falls, from the base (1-3) and top (4, 5).
Frames 6 through 18 are in Lewis Pass. The electric green of the trees in frame 12 is really there on the slide. Frame 13 is a close-up of some sort of epiphyte growing in the trees -- this is the beard-like stuff on the trees in frames 7 and 8. The dragonfly in frame 14 is very hard to see against the ground, so I drew a circle around him or her. Frame 18 is a macro photo of some sort of very small ground cover.
Frames 19 through 21 (with the terrible exposures) are at Hawk's Crag on the Buller River. This was much more impressive in person. If you look at the left side of frame 20, you can see the fence at the side of the road road snaking around the base of the cliff. The contrast was much too strong for Velvia 50 film though, and I would have needed a much wider lens.
Frames 22 and 23 are of Mow-gli (aka Moggie), the motel kitty at the Buller Bridge Motel.
Frames 24 through 31 capture three rare New Zealand Blue Ducks (or Whio, pronounced fee-o) swimming on the tea-colored waters that drain the Karamea area. This odd color, which is actually caused by rotting vegetation, is easily visible in frames 29 and 30. None of the duck photos is particularly clear (nor magnified) since this was 50-speed film and no more than 135mm on the lens. Frame 32 is the Oparara Arch, a huge limestone arch whose mind-boggling scale is simply not comprehensible from the slide. Frames 33 and 34 are bad, out-of-focus images of me at the arch (using the remote and forgetting to fix up the camera settings first), 35 is the same shot with me behind the camera instead, and frame 36 shows some of the impressive color and form in the rocks near the arch.
Map by StefanWulph