RAKAIA - a challenging adventure to a spectacular and seldom visited corner of New Zealand

Back in July 2022, in the depths of the NZ winter, I spent 5 days on a solo trip into the headwaters of the Rakaia River. Soon after, I posted a video of the trip (here on YouTube), which based on my style at that time, was tightly edited and entirely set to music. While I still really like that video, that approach meant much of the story (which had its fair share of eventful moments) wasn’t told. And a lot of footage ended up on the cutting room floor.

So, here it is – the more complete version of one of the best adventures I’ve ever done.

For those interested in the techie details, while the majority of the footage was shot in 4K, much of it was filmed on an iPhone 12 . The better quality clips were filmed on my Nikon Z7II and the aerial footage was captured with a DJI Mavic Pro 2. Speaking of the drone footage, all locations in this video are close to but not over public conservation land, so a concession permit wasn’t required (before using my drone I always check DOC’s online maps, which are a great resource).

If you have any questions about the trip, fire away in the comments :-)

CHAPTERS:
00:00 Introduction and 4WD drop-off
02:58 Day 1
04:30 Day 2
06:02 Day 3
09:31 Day 4
14:52 Day 5

#nz #adventure #photography