Lake Benmore

I was up at dawn to take photos of the sunrise from Hampden beach. Then I went back for a lie down with my book.

I finally got on the road about 9. I drove down to Palmerston, bought a coffee and went back to Bushey to sit on the side of the road and have some laughs and some tears at the site where I erected Blaze's cross. It was the first time I've been there on my own and that was hard - but it was hard to leave too and I spent longer sitting there 'chatting' with Blaze than I intended to. Quite a few cars tooted as they went past and it wasn't until they did that it crossed my mind that I've seen hundreds of crosses at accident sites over the years but I've never seen anyone at them.

Anyway, I made it to Oamaru by 12 and visited my favourite shoe shop there - where I couldn't resist a pair of summer shoes. Oops.

I hadn't decided for definite where I was headed today so I sat at the intersection in Oamaru and played eeney meeney miney mo. The lights changed before I finished so I went with the direction I was on as I put the van into gear.

I went north then took the road through Kurow. Stopped on top of Waitaki dam for a look around, then stopped on Aviemore dam for a late lunch. I also stopped at a few different views of Lake Benmore. For those of you who don't know it; lake Benmore is a manmade lake covering approximately 75 square kilometres and holds 12.5 million cubic metres of water.

When I got to Omarama I decided on left - I might go right tomorrow. So here I am at Lake Ruataniwha. It has a great day - an emotional start followed by relaxed driving and fantastic weather.

I struggled to choose which shot of Benmore, so I've gone with the simplest (I like the wee bit of driftwood in the foreground) but have loaded this and two others onto flickr. What do you think? All of these are cropped but the colour is SOOC.