Mystic Maungakotukutuku

As lovely as living in Wellington can be, there is one thing that we often miss out on here due to the geography of the region... fog, mist and snow.

These are elements that I've been wanting to explore for a very long time, however I'm usually in the wrong place at the wrong time, and then when I am ready... the weather isn't doing what I would ideally like. So when I woke up one morning in late November 2014, to a beautiful view of extremely low cloud out the window, I knew I had to make the most of it.

So myself, my partner and my trusty camera took a trip up into the Maungakotukutuku Scenic Reserve, which is a short drive into the hills behind Paraparaumu. The drive up is on your  typical narrow and windy New Zealand road, but completely sealed and regularly serviced thankfully. So as we're driving further into the abyss, we suddenly realise that the clouds are thickening and we can only see a good 30 metres in front us. We approach a sharp corner and as we slowly make the turn round it, we're welcomed with this. 

As we continue to drive further up, we finally hit the summit of the first peak and begin out descend into the valley. I'll never forget how strange that place felt.. so eerie and surreal. I was convinced we were either on another planet, or the lead stars in a new horror movie. There was absolutely no life to be seen or heard. No birds chirping, cars driving, people working... just dead silence. By this time of course you could only see several metres in front of you, so you were always unsure of what was around that next corner.

Eventually our nicely tar sealed road comes to an end, and it's time to hit gravel. Not long after that we finally see our first sign of life.. well at least that's what I thought. It turned out to be a truck parked just off the road with nobody in or around it. Odd.

We drive another several minutes along the gravel when we start to notice the gravel beneath our tyres is diminishing and mud is beginning to take it's place. My vehicle is far from off-road worthy, so I start to question if we should continue further. Lets just see what's around this bend. 

As we turn around that next corner I'm then welcomed with this serene and juxtaposing view.

Given the field of photography I've decided to pursue, I have an abnormally disgusting interest in man made structures. This leads me to look at shapes, patterns, and angles that aren't often looked at upon first impressions of a structure and given the rare instance that I was within shooting range of powers lines this size, I took the opportunity to capture this shot from below.

Continuing our drive down the mud and gravel mixture, we finally hit a part in the road where there is well... really no road. Just an off-road tracks that leads off into the fog somewhere. Looks like it's time to turn around and head back the way we came. Unfortunately there's absolutely no safe place to turn around, so the only option is to reverse back through 100 metres of mud and fog to a slightly larger and safer area to make it back out.

After we're finally heading back in the right direction, I look out the rear view mirror and this is staring right back at me. Time to pull over again.

We head back along the way we came, by this stage used to our new desolate world, we recall that we still haven't seen a soul in sight for our hour of being here. We hit the tar sealed road again, and we're on the incline back towards the summit that we first passed over.

There's a small bay for cars to pull over in, so again I park up and this time decide to go for a walk up the road to see what I find. Suddenly I hear the noise of life and a truck comes speeding out of the fog and down the hill, then it disappears around the corner like it was never there to begin with, It's quite a surreal feeling seeing somebody come from nowhere when you've been exposed to isolation for the past while.

I calm myself from this strange feeling and frame up this shot when I'm confident nobody's going to emerge from the mist and run me over.

As we begin to approach the top, I suddenly notice there's a forest of pine trees that are easily accessible. I must have completely missed these on our way in, as this was exactly what I was hoping to find.

I was overcome with a kick of adrenaline. This was precisely what I had been picturing in my mind for so long.

After finally getting what I was after, it's time to leave this bleak valley. We hop back into the car and drive no more than a minute when I see my final and arguably favourite shot. 

As we drive back down into civilisation, I realise just how amazing that day really was. With winter closing in, I hope we have more days like this in the region... although I'm sure many of you may disagree.

Leroy