Heaphy Splendour!

Heaphy Track is one one of my favourite ones. It also belongs to an exclusive group of “9 Great Walks” in New Zealand and traverses Kahurangi National Park in top left corner of the South Island. With its 82km, it’s the longest track of these “Great Walks”.
Why I love this tramp? Simply because at one starting point you are on the West Coast by the Tasman Sea, then you climb through juicy green bush and along rivers ans streams, cross alpine plateau with its karst landscapes before finishing in Nelson Region near Takaka.
The variety of scenery is amazing. Starting on the coast, the track begins to wind its way through beautiful Nikau palm grove and follows the remote coastline before it turns uphill towards karst, alpine landscapes of the park.
These Nikau palms are usually common up in the North Island, whereas down south its a little too cold for them. Therefore it is only this corner of the South Island where they grow, with an exemption of a small grow, little further down in Punakaiki.

In the image above, I photographed these Nikau palms on the rainy day with heavy overcast. Yes, that’s the best time to go out into bush to make some great images full of detail because the low contrast and diffused light allows for that.
As it rained quite heavily with some brief breaks, all the bush was beautifully rich in colours. It is well known that polarizing filter reduces reflections which is often good to get rid of but in this instance I choose not to use it as I loved that shiny, steel like sheen on the palm leaves, together with its rich, dark green colour.
…and of course, I also have a polarized version of the shot…..
Next time we get higher up to explore some karst scenes…