The Dunedin Street Art Trail – Artwork by Bikismo
Curious and creative views of Ōtepoti as I wander each charter’d street.
The warmth of the afternoon that had seemingly lingered forever, finally gave way late in the day. The clear blue skies had been engulfed by a dark, mood bank of cloud that had rolled in, bringing with it intense wind gusts that seemed intent on battering everything in its path. The once calm and peaceful blue ocean had been transformed into a brooding, angry mass that was beginning to churn and swell into the rocky shoreline of Lawyers Head and beyond to St Kilda beach. Far off in the distance the gathering clouds gave an ominous prediction of heavy rain. The once lovely summer’s day had suddenly changed, almost as if by the flick of a switch.
The light melted into the horizon, as evening hues spread across the calm, mirror-like ocean. I waded in the still water, the lingering warmth of the day remaining present for a few minutes. The shoreline curved gently, its silhouette darkness against the glow of the setting sun. Waves lapped lazily around my ankles, the world quieting with each fading ray.
Dusk in sand dunes at St Kilda beach
The evening light set the ocean alight with warm hues of orange, yellow and blue as I walked through the dunes. Nearby the gentle swell rolling toward the shore. It was early summer, and the air, filled with salt, carried the last traces of the day’s warmth. Silhouetted hills loomed in the distance while sea grasses swayed lazily on the dunes. The quiet beauty of the sunset fading as the light dipped.
The ocean, alive and golden, shimmered like glass as the sun sank behind the hills above St Clair. I floated, suspended in water that glowed with the kind of warmth only early summer knows. Waves rolled gently to the shore, while clouds blushed a deep, contented orange. The world, caught between day and night and for a fleeting moment as the last of the daylight shimmered on the horizon.
Here in Dunedin it’s getting to that lovely time of year when the sun rises early, the days are warm and the light lasts long into the evening. At this time instead of the sun setting behind the hills, it dips below the horizon far down the coast. Meaning from beaches like St Kilda, you can sit on the beach deep into evening and watch it fade from sight with the hypnotic rhythms of breaking waves acting as a backdrop.
Back in October Dunedin had its wettest day in over a century. Three times the usual rainfall expected in October fell in the city in just 48 hours. 38 roads were closed including State Highways to the north and south of the city, communities were cut off and suburbs were flooded. A state of emergency was put in place and all over the region there were landslides and rivers bursting their banks.
Early morning in the Exchange
I found myself on an early Dunedin morning, ambling into The Exchange where I spent a few minutes watching the city come awake. The air had a fresh untouched feel to it as the soft orange hues that appeared with the break of day were hit with sunlight. That’s what I love about mornings, they have a fresh, new, anything is possible feel to them. Unless of course you’re wildly hungover. Fortunately I wasn’t, so I savored watching the city stretch and yawn. I sipped my coffee and admired the urban patchwork stitched together by time and light.
The Hayes family homestead and engineering works really is an intriguing place and tribute to the term ‘No 8 wire thinking.’ The best thing about it is the fact that it hasn’t been modernised in the way that a lot of tourist attractions are these days. It’s presented in just the way it was used, as a backyard shed. In fact, an argument can be made for Ernest Hayes to be one of the original backyard Kiwi innovators (even though he was actually English!). Set amongst the rural backdrop of Oturehua in Central Otago, Hayes set-up his home and engineering workshop around 1895 where he invented all manner of agricultural tools, rabbit bait cutters, wind turbines and a patented wire strainer for applying tension to wire on farm fences. Which is still in production to this very day.
New Zealand’s most photographed tree in Lake Wanaka
That Wanaka tree is a determined wee thing. It started life growing from a fence post line that ran into the water around 1939 and has been going strong ever since. While locals remain somewhat confused about its popularity, the tree has been described as “New Zealand’s most famous tree” and “one of the most photographed trees in all New Zealand”. Unsurprisingly, it has become a tourist attraction in its own right.
Made up completely of rock, Second Beach is nearly impossible to walk on without your feet sinking into the stones. Years of consistent wave movement have created great drifts of raggedly oval stones worn to a polished smoothness. At the same time, the sea crashes into the shore creating a seemingly endless musical score of stones clattering on the shoreline while the air is filled with the smell of seaweed and spray from saltwater. It has tidal rock pools, unstable cliffs, disused quarry structures that are nearly eighty years old and occasionally you’ll see Sea Lions or Fur Seals basking on the shoreline. It’s one of the most glorious places in Dunedin.
Lake Wakatipu towards Glenorchy
In the past ten minutes since leaving Queenstown the wind had picked up and was now a decent gale! I was heading for the township of Glenorchy further up Lake Wakatipu and that was exactly where the dark, moody weather seemed to be heading for. Beyond Pigeon and Pig Islands which sat further up lake the distance, the peaks of Sugar Loaf, Mount Nox, Mount Chaos and both the Routeburn and Beans Burn Valley’s were disappearing under a heavy squall of wind and rain.
On my way through Bluff I stopped at a food truck to grab some lunch. After ordering and while I was waiting, I went for a walk and looked at some nearby street art not too far away. The thing was, despite the weather being pretty bloody miserable, there was something quite appealing about the town, in a confusing sort of way.
As I journeyed across the open, endless plains where the wind seemed to roll with freedom, I found myself surrounded by a landscape that felt both vast and intimate. Bales of hay stood stacked high in an orderly silence, waiting patiently for the coming of winter. The grass, dry from the summer heat, whispered secrets as it rustled in the breeze, and nearby a barbed wire fence hummed softly, as if intune with the rhythm of the land. All the while, overhead a pale blue sky stretched endlessly into the beyond, a playground for the wild seeds that danced in the wind.
This is one of my latest images, again it’s another one with textures. This time of the Haast River in the South Island here in New Zealand. Due to the weather (which was terrible) the sky was a mix white nothingness while the river and surrounding banks were wet, dark and gloomy. So, I went with stone textures in the sky and carried them around the edges where I also added a little vignetting to add mood. All up it took about an hour, which is a lovely relaxing way to pass the time.