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	Saturday, 31 July 2004

No.5 Is Alive! Look what I made.... "What the hell is it?!", I hear you all asking. Its my first radio controled camera cradle for Kite Aerial Photography. It can pan, it can tilt, and it can fire the shutter when I tell it to, while suspended about 30m down the kite line, below one of the two parafoils I have especially for this purpose. Now I just need the right conditions, ie wind. I'm already planning a second rig. This time big enough to carry my SLR camera aloft. It will have a video feed to the ground using a 'spy' camera to use as a kind of view finder when shooting. Also I'll add a fourth RC servo to enable me to rotate the camera from landscape to portrait from the ground. I'm pretty proud of this. I've always been better with software than hardware like this. 9:39:58 AM    Comment []

	Thursday, 15 July 2004

Good Winds Woo Hoo! I got to have a blast on my kite buggy today! Its been a particularly windless winter this year. The little wind there has been has usually been accompanied by rain or hail, or its been an absolute gale. This afternoon however was different. I was itching to get away from work because the had been a nice northerly wind blowing all afternoon and I knew it was low tide at the beach. When I finally did get away the wind had shifted to the north-east. The beach faces north-west so I had to do a lot of tacking across the beach, but I wasn't going to let that put me off. All my kites have been in the back of the van (or car) for months, just in case. I decided on my 6.3m c-quad and after spending about 20 frustrating minutes untangling the bridles (I must have been in a hurry last time I packed it away) I was away. I worked my way to the widest part of the beach and buggyed back and forth for over an hour, until it was dark and my fingers were numb from cold. The beach is only a about 150m across yet I managed to travel about 7.5 kilometers according to my speedo. I can't wait for summer... 7:27:05 PM    Comment []

	Monday, 5 July 2004

A walk along the edge of the world On Saturday afternoon I set out on a mission to the north-west corner of the South Island. This was to be both a photographic quest, and a kite buggy reconisance trip. I wanted to check out Farewell Spit.  It is a huge arm of sand that completes Golden Bay and protects it from the wild weather that hits the west coast. Farewell Spit itself proved a little hard to get to. You can only walk the first 2.5 km of it; a fraction of its total length, and the only other way to see it was in a large four-wheel drive bus behind a wall of glass. It is heavily protected because of the huge variety of birdlife it is home to. I don't like my chances of being able to kite buggy on it. The good news is the area around the spit is amazing and I found two other very promising beaches which I will buggy when the tide and winds are right. On Saturday night I camped in a little clearing in the scrub beside the road, near the top of a hill. I wasn't exactly sure where until the morning because I arrived in the dark. Not to many street lights out here. In the morning I embarked on a hike that yeilded some photographs of the most spectacular coastline I have ever seen. From the lighthouse at the top of the hill, just west of Pakawau, all the way down to the coast, then along the cliff edge for a couple of hours, finally arriving at Wharariki Beach. This beach is a jewel. As a kite buggyier and as a photographer, I couldn't imagine a better place. The view from the lighthouse looking south along the west coast. I had camped at the start of the track, about 10 mins walk from this view. The sea pounds at the cliff face at Cape Farewell. Standing on Cape FareWell looking North. The lush green farmland comes to an abrut end. The prize at the end of the hike (actually only half way, I had to walk back too). Wharariki beach, seen here at high tide, will be awesome fun to kite buggy. I'll have to carry kite buggy and kites along a cattle track to get there but it will be worth it. I might even be the first person to buggy it! When the tide is out I should be able to get right down to the bluffs in the distance. The other beach I found on the way home was Pakawau beach. Its alot like rabbit island and I can park right on it. All objectives achieved. Some great scenic shots and two new beaches to buggy. 10:06:11 PM    Comment []

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