While exploring the Maniototo region this Summer we fell in love with the St Bathans area. From the peaceful free DOC camping domain, to the quaint historic mining village - we found ourselves a new favourite to add to our many travel map pins.

​Absolutely taken with the landscape, I vowed to spend some time with my camera capturing the Blue Lake one sunset or sunrise. However as soon as I declared my creative intentions the weather gods played a cruel game of cloudy, rainy weather for the next 3 days. So we'd have to wait it out, find some other nearby places to explore and tiki tour about the Maniototo until the sun reappeared on the horizon. 

And as soon as it did, I was back at St Bathans with my camera for a sunset walk! It's about a 15 minute walk from the camping domain over to the Blue Lake and the trails that wrap around it offering different views of the lake and it's eroding cliff faces. The clouds were moody but unfortunately it was pretty windy so I didn't get the reflections on the lake - still it was nice to take my camera for a walk, finding some cool angles and watching the saturated colours change as the sun went down.

Watch our St Bathan's episode on YouTube - we take you on the Around Blue Lake track that provides stunning viewing points of the lake and cliffs!

This free DOC camp at Gabriel's Gully, just out of Lawrence, was a beautiful spot to park up for a couple of nights. It's dog-friendly, has three awesome walks close-by which are also dog-friendly and filled with the rich gold mining history of this area. 

We camped down by Gray's Dam along with a few other caravan setups - a quiet spot we thought, considering this was during the school holidays. There is a lovely open area with plenty of space for a few campers and is free & available to those self-contained, as there are no facilities out at Gabriel's Gully - it is a pack in, pack out.

We were treated to a couple of warm sunny days before the weather turned to rain on our last day. Unfortunately we didn't get a sunset worth photographing however the misty clouds that came down in to the gully on our last morning was giving Twilight Forks vibes! This spot would be magical in Autumn with all the larch trees turning in colour I reckon!

We really enjoyed spending some time roaming the character streets of Lawrence too. Also worth a drive by if you're out this way is what's left of the historic Blue Spur township up on the hill.

We will no doubt be back to this area (hopefully for the Autumn colours!) but also there's one walk we missed out on doing as the weather turned and you guys know we love finding dog-friendly walks we can do with Teddy!

​You can check out more from our adventures in this area in this YouTube episode...

Alongside creating videos of our adventures, this new travel life has also re-invigorated my joy for picking up my camera just for myself.

Recently we ventured in to Lake Opuha in the Mackenzie District with the van. This small lake is dammed for irrigation and incredibly low at present, just far enough off the beaten track to be a fairly quiet spot to park up and camp for the night.

There are 3 freedom camping spots around this lake and we chose the farthest area around the lake which proved to be much nicer and quieter than the first one we visited - we ended up getting the whole place to ourselves for the night (if you don't count the hundreds of Canadian Geese across the other side of the lake from us)!

I loved photographing the landscape around us as the sun set over a snowcapped Mount Dobson. This mountain range is probably more commonly photographed from the Lake Tekapo side, as Lake Opuha sits east of Tekapo and north of Fairlie. It has it's own ski field too.

The next day on our way back out east we stopped in at Opuha Dam and did the walking track which follows the lake around to the boat ramp and first freedom camping spot (the one we by-passed as it was mainly all sloping and had a lot of muddy donuts & skids from 4wd'ers marking up the grassy areas). You'll have to watch our YouTube episode to see the walk and the dam though, but here's a few of my favourite photos from our night at Lake Opuha.

​The lake itself and the dam lookout is well worth checking out if you're travelling in the Mackenzie District and want to get off the highway!

Have you been to Lake Opuha? I imagine it's a great lake for boating in Summer, although perhaps it gets too low??

We have taken delivery of our van from Jayco Auckland and completed our first road trip doing over 1,500 kilometres back to Southland in it. Join us for the journey of getting to know our new home on wheels in our 2 part series on YouTube.

And on the second leg of our road trip we answered all the questions we have received about our plans for van life. Next stop; moving in & living full time van life!

We've spent the last month preparing for van life as we pack up our house, put things in to storage, purge A LOT and consider what we need to take with us to live on the road. In this YouTube episode I bring you along for the journey of downsizing from a 65 square metre tiny home to a mere 15 square metres of van!

Sharing the finer details of our big news in this fresh YouTube episode...