I feel kind of haunted.
I seem to have my personal cloud loaded with massive amounts of water.
The good news is I am properly dressed with rain gear now
***
The firs time since years I have picked up a hitchhiker.
A 40 yr Maori woman wanted a lift to Hamilton to buy cigarettes. Its just a 30 min ride to the next tobacco shop.
A reason to give up smoking in my mind.

I was wondering whether my English is bad today as she seemed to not understood everything.
She told me that she had an infection in her ears, which left her with 5% hearing capabilities.

Health care is an issue if you live remote.

We had a good laugh when I told her that my loud talking is due to a tinnitus on my end.
She said, thats ok for her. So she understands at least something.

On the next corner I dropped her as I needed to make a right to Raglan and she needed to turn left to Hamilton.

***

After signing into a camp ground with just 10 powered camper locations (there are not a lot in that corner of NZ which offer WIFI too), I was heading on to get to my 4pm appointment at bridal vail falls.
At 4pm the light would have been just perfect.

Pulling int the parking lot, guess what, it started to rain.
That’s Kharma.
***
the thing about waterfalls is „they are wet anyway“.
No need to turn back.
***
To warm up I took a 10x timed photo from the top of the fall.


Pict. 31: Bridal Vails Fall from the top- 30secs shutter to blur the water and the plants moving in the winds.

***

Very tourist friendly, 270 steps led you down to the pool level of the waterfall.
After 1.5 h I had several photos with the intended longer shutter speed (between 15“ and 30“ ).
1,5h, because there was a lot of traffic down there. Despite the poor weather approx. 25ish persons climbed down. And as usual one goes the next one comes.
The wooden platform is very sensible for vibration. And that ruins the sharpness of the pictures. No photos while someone else was walking on the platform.
This vacation patience seems to be written on my list of things to achieve.
I had a good conversation with a Palestine couple.
They have emigrated to NZ 3 month ago coming from Dubai.
Their reason to immigrate to NZ was that Dubai is too vibrant and „in New Zealand everything is way more relaxed and with way more quality of living...“
The same message as yesterday, the same message as always.
Between different conversations with US folks, with folks from the Phillipines, with the Palestine couple and with NZ’landers, I managed to be alone on the platform.
Here are the best results.....



Pict. 32: I love B&W. But it could be a better picture (if sun would have boosted some contrast ).


Pict. 33: A vertical 3:1 panorama.


Pict. 34: A panorama of the pool


Pict 35: an asymetric arrangement



Pict. 36: my favorite a B&W detail of stones in the pool.

****