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Dawson Falls – Te Were o Noke

Te Rere o Noke (Dawson Falls) is an 18 metre waterfall in Mt Egmont National Park. It’s one of the most popular and accessible falls in the Taranaki region. There are a few stairs making the track not suitable for wheelchairs or strollers. The road to the carpark is sealed and from there it is a 20 minute walk to the waterfall. We arrived in the early evening in summer. If I had had more time it would have been nice to get closer to the falls, maybe even gone for a swim. We still had another hour or so drive to our accomodation that day so this had to be a quick stop.

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The Devil’s Pulpit Waterfall

Unless you love photographing waterfalls, I would not recommend going here. It’s quite dangerous to get down into the gorge. It was the last evening of our short trip to Scotland, I realised we hadn’t seen many big or dramatic waterfalls. So this one is thanks to Flickr or was it Instagram? I forget exactly where I discovered the Devil’s Pulpit. Turned out to be less than half an hour away from where we were staying and not too much of a detour. When we visited, there was no easy places to park on either the B834 or the A809 roads. After a few back and forths we found somewhere to park and walked into the woods around Finnich Glen. This is Carnock Burn. There’s a footpath on the south side of the gorge. Then a very steep, slippery ancient stone steps called Jacob’s Ladder. There wasn’t a rope there when we went but it could do with one, especially on a rainy day. Taken with a tripod and the camera zoomed in to create this perspective. Finnich Glen isn’t anywhere near as narrow as it looks in this photograph.

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Vivian Falls

Vivian Falls

In the Harker Reserve the Vivian Falls were the most difficult to find during my 2019 tour of New Zealand’s North Island. They are in the north west of the Waikato region, only an hours drive south of Auckland. When I parked up the car I missed seeing the small sign and gate. This meant I ended up walking through the whole reserve. Which was a nice bush walk but ended up walking for a couple of hours looking for this waterfall which turned out to be less than 50 metres from where I had parked. It’s not the easiest one to get down too. Theres some very slippy stairs. It’s a 12 metre drop waterfall in this horse tail style. It is much more difficult to photograph in this landscape format but I liked the mosses of the greenery on the side. This is a 3.2 second long exposure. I did try some vertical shots but prefer posting landscape aspect photographs.

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Owharoa Falls

One of the first waterfalls I photographed in the Waikato region. It’s a staircase waterfall and the highlight of the Karanghi gorge, off State Highway 2. Even following the signs it was a little difficult to work out exactly where the waterfall was. About 100 metres off the highway on the right side. Theres about half a dozen carparks. Its only a 5-10 minute walk so its very accessible. Its actually a series of three waterfalls but this is the main one. When I arrived there was a group of half a dozen young women swimming in the water. I waited for them to finish their swim whilst I looked at all the various locations to photograph the waterfall from. There’s a few different rocks to stand on along the waters edge. Whilst I also captured shots from much further back looking up stream this was my favourite. It was a 30 second long exposure at f./16. The height of the waterfall is only 6 metres so it’s not one of the biggest in New Zealand. It’s one of my favourites due to the fanned out nature of the waterfall and the surrounding landscape.