Jessie Casson

The past 10 days have passed at a slightly different pace. Two friends from the UK came to stay for 4 nights. We decided to take them up to a tramping hut, near Mangaweka, for one night. 3 hrs of uphill walking, Matt carrying Dylan and us lugging food, sleeping bags and wine, there was no hut in sight. The wind was howling, we were on the top of a mountain and the rain was beginning to fall. We realised that we had about 2 hrs before dark and decided to do an about turn back down the track. At dark we were back to where we had begun and looking at the sign in more detail we realised that we had taken the wrong path from the outset! Had we continued on this path we wouldn’t have reached our destination for another 6 hrs. Thank goodness we had about turned.

Two days later I photographed John from New Plymouth, who shows Poultry. What a lovely guy, he has been showing his ‘fancy birds’ since 1945. I write this from Tauranga while trying to investigate a competition that involves people trying to fly.

We have found a beautiful campground near to Mangaweka. We happened apon it by accident just as a one night stop over and have been there 3 nights since. It is next to a clear river, fast flowing and deep enough to swim in. We share the place with the odd other camper but mostly we have been on our own. In the evening we have campfires by the river and toast marshmallows. I don’t think it can get much better than this.

I have the contact sheets for the first 22 shoots. I felt like I was awaiting exam results. I thought I had done well but I wasn’t 100% sure of the grade. Matt drove us up to Upper Hutt after collecting the goods and I flicked through the shoots trusting sheets in front of him to glance at. They are good; I am happy and feel light of foot and energised. We celebrated with a bottle of pinot noir and some crayfish, of which we have 6, given to me by Trevor who owns a crayfish factory. I now must research hard for the North island tour. There is plenty more work to be done before we finish.

Yesterday I met up with Loren Horsley for a shoot, an amazing actress and beautiful lady. She is always a pleasure to spend time with and photograph.

Yesterday was an extraordinary day. 10am saw us collecting a forgotten film from NgAang, our Takaka subject. By 10.30am we were all naked (I kept my pants on for the record!) in NgAng’s hot tub sipping on fresh organic berry smoothies discussing the impending end of the world in true Takaka style. On exiting NgAng’s we noticed the tyre on the caravan was literally falling apart and wouldn’t make it over Takaka’s steep, winding hill. So at 12.43pm we started to seek for someone to replace the tyre. Pretty much everything closes at 12pm on a Sat. Luckily, after getting a ridiculous call out quote, we found a guy shutting up shop who very kindly reopened to fix our problem.

The caravan huffed and puffed it’s way over the hill while we discussed selling up in Auckland and joining the hippies in their land of love. Pulling into Nelson at a petrol station a passerby alerted us to a flat tyre. The other tyre on the caravan had a puncture, how very odd to travel 7 weeks and then two in one day. So even harder was our task to find a tyre man at 4.37pm. After kind gestures and phone calls a man agreed to meet us at his mechanics garage. “He will probably charge you like a wounded bull” was our helping hands closing words. But no, the kind garage owner changed the tyre and sent us on our way with a spare wheel for a mere $70.

The sun set in Cable Bay over us enjoying a fine celebratory meal in Cable Bay’s unique cafe. We toasted the midway point of our adventure, 22 subjects under our belt and an overwhelming feeling of wellbeing and happiness

We set the km counter to 0.00 when we left Auckland and we will stop the clock when we arrive back home. I will give a free copy of the “Winners/ champions” book to the person who gets the closest to guessing the kms traveled on our trip. Leave your guess in the ‘leave a reply’ box on this blog. Please also leave you address or telephone no. so that I can contact you.