St Bathans, Maniototo ~ Otago

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!