Daily Photo – The Idaburn on Agnew Road

The road from Ophir in the Manuherikia Valley headed up over the Raggedy Range before dropping down into the Ida Valley, and that’s where the weather really changed and the scenery shifted dramatically. The sharp blue sky vanished, and a ghostly white, low-lying mist and fog took hold, slowly dissolving the landscape into it.

I drove on and on into the mucky white gloom, the temperature slowly dropping into negative numbers before settling at a freezing −5°C. The heavy hoar frost drained every trace of colour and sound, leaving only absolute silence. By the time the side roads crossed the Idaburn, trees and bridges were merely shapes in the haze, sitting on the edge of the world.