Day 10 Australia

Back to Crab Creek at 4:45am to attempt to pick up the shots we missed from the previous day. We set up the 1D again in the underwater housing and place it by our deserted desert tree. This time we film on a faster frame rate to catch the speedy tide as it whooshes in and out. When the tide had gone out a bit and we could access the camera again we switch memory cards to film the tide going out. Rey sets up the 20D camera in a different position this time, filming four little trees in what looked like a desert of red sand. Like everything else these were soon submerged too.

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Day 9 Australia

5:00am and we head off to the lighthouse. We struggle to find a shot that is different to what we have already captured and that would logistically work. We then drive around to all the locations we had recce’d in the surrounding areas attempting to find a shot for the day. After great difficulty and not much success we decided to abort and get on a plane back to Sydney sending Rey back up to Queensland next week to attempt to re-shoot what we missed due to the rain.

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Day 8 Australia

We start the day at 4:45am and make our way to Crab Creek; we set up the 20D camera on top of a cliff and the 1D camera in its underwater housing in front of a tree. It felt like we were in the middle of the desert, surrounded by vivid red dirt. The tide came in at such a severely rapid pace that it completely submerged the entire tree along with the camera. By the time the 1D had come out of the water the memory card had filled up. Later a hovercraft landed in the exact place where the 20D was filming, what a day.

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Day 7 Australia

Up and off to Gantheaume Point at 5:00am situated right by a Nunnery. We set up both cameras on the beach. The scenery is spectacular with red rock, reddish sand and perfect aqua water. We find a great spot for the 1D camera in front of what looks like a modern rock sculpture.

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Day 6 Australia

Today is travel day; we have our earliest start yet at a cracking 4:00 am. A dreary twelve and a half hours later we arrive at Broome. We meet with Mike Tucker to talk through the map and get location ideas for the next week.

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Day 5 Australia

Today is travel day; we have our earliest start yet at a cracking 4:00 am. A dreary twelve and a half hours later we arrive at Broome. We meet with Mike Tucker to talk through the map and get location ideas for the next week.

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Day 4 Australia

We’re getting in the swing of early starts with another 5:00am start. We pick up Paul in the pouring rain and head north to Mossman. We go into the Daintree Rainforest, and past Cape Tribulation to Cowie Bay crossing many rivers with daunting closed signs across them. Fortunately we make it through. By this time the rain had set in and the wind had picked up so the beautiful protected beach we were hoping to film at is filled with surf and does not look very pretty at all.

At this point we head back to town stopping at various spots trying to find a location that would suit the dismal weather. We attempt Noah River, Thornton Beach, and Marrdja Botanical Boardwalk with no luck. We finally get back to town around 2pm and organise a dinghy to head down a river to try to find a shot for the next day if the weather was terrible again. We find a good spot but decide it looks too similar to the day before, so we decide to build a rig that could go off the boardwalk and into the water at Marrdja Boardwalk [where we had visited earlier that morning]. Paul was an absolute hero putting this together for us. We decide not to let the weather get us down and to stay on schedule moving on to Broome on Saturday.

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Day 3 Australia

We get cracking with a 5:15am pick up and are all set up at Mowbray River by 6:00am. Rey abseils 4 meters down a cliff to the waters edge to set up the cameras. The crocodile infested river looks like the Amazon. Paul and Rey nervously set up the 1D camera by the water’s edge and then climb back up the cliff to set up the 20D camera under a tree canopy. Paul then returns to town leaving us sitting between the Crocodile River and a snake infested sugar cane farm. We are relived Paul returns several times during the day so that Rey can abseil down to check the camera.

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Day 2 Australia

Today we’re up and off to meet with location scout Paul Dowd who very generously agrees to spend the week helping out as a volunteer. We set out on a recce North, at first we are unsuccessful as there is too much surf at Cape Tribulation but at Cowie Bay we find a great little mangrove that looks just like a bonsai tree.

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Day 1 Australia

We get on a flight from Sydney to Cairns and are met by local, and location manager Rob Richardson. Rob very kindly loans us shot bags, maps and gives us some location ideas. With this we set off to Port Douglas stopping along the way to scout locations. We discover Yewell point, this is a great spot with plenty of mangroves but the southern end of four-mile beach proves to be even better as there is hardly any human traffic.

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Day 9 New Zealand

At 6:30am we set up the 20D camera in a fairly remote location. We secure the tripod to a tree log which is heavy and wedged pretty strongly in the area we need to put the camera. At 7:30am we set up the 1Ds at the prime Milford Sounds photographic location (in the mud flats). Jeff and Rey return to the other camera and I stay with the 1Ds. At around 2:00pm the tide is getting very high, and they notice that the log the 20D has been attached to is moving in the water. The camera is also on the verge of being submerged by the rising tide. Luckily the tide turns around in another half hour.

Things are going well and with the weather being so clear we decide to let the 1Ds camera continue running through the night to get the midnight tide run. We wrap the camera around 3am.

Once the memory card has run out and the tide has turned back around we wrap the camera and head back to Queenstown, feeling very happy with our accomplishments over the past 10 days.

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Day 8 New Zealand

Getting used to these 5am departures. Today we travel to Milford Sound. We drive 1 and a half hours to Nelson. Leave Nelson at 8:30am and arrive an hour later in Christchurch before making our way to Queenstown. We’re picked up by our Queenstown support, Jeff Williams, from Shoot NZ, and jump in the car and after a few stop offs to get organised we embark on our four hour drive to Milford Sound. We arrive in the stunning Milford Sound around 6pm. We recce the areas and find our locations for the next 2 days.

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Day 7 New Zealand

Yet again we have a 5am departure. After reviewing the underwater footage from the day before Rey felt it would be great to try and pick up that shot today this time with a faster frame rate, so that we can capture the rapid dramatic rise in tide. We drive, stopping a little bit short of the “Taryn Island” location and set up the 20D camera (an hour and a half out of Takaka). I stay with this camera while Rey travel back 30mins to the river to set up the underwater camera at the previous days location.

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Day 6 New Zealand

Another 5am departure. We drive just past Collingwood (an hour out of Takaka) and take a turn off Farewell Spit Road just past long bridge over the Aorere River. We had planned to shoot in a eel infested river under one of the bridges on the main road, however when we turn into a side street we find a much more picturesque bridge over a river where the water is cleaner and we can safely put the camera underwater. We set up the 1Ds in the underwater housing unit and place it in the river (which is empty at low tide). We then set up the 20D on the bridge looking in the opposite direction. Between 9:30am and 9:45am the water level rises dramatically. It continues to rise at a rapid rate until around 11:00am when it is slack tide for over an hour. Unable to change batteries or memory cards on the underwater camera we wait until the water is at low tide again before we can remove it.

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Day 5 New Zealand

5am departure. After seeing the footage from the day before we decide to go back to Wairoa River “Taryn Island” and attempt to shoot it again. The weather on Sunday had been a bit miserable and without the right light on the island it all looked a bit dull. With the 1D in the same position as the previous day, and the 20D in the second position from the previous day we had both cameras set up fairly quickly. Knowing what to expect of the tide the day went much more smoothly and we were much more confident in the shots we were getting. The weather was near perfect all day long.

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Day 4 New Zealand

We depart at 5am and Rey and I head to the Wairoa River. After a few wrong turns we managed to arrive at the location I like to call “Taryn Island” around 6:30am.

We set up the 1D above the tide mark, and the 20D lower to the ground, closer to the tidal level. High tide was at approximately midday. Between 6:30am and 10:00am there is very little movement of water coming into the area. By 11:00am the 20D is nearly covered in water and has to be removed. Rey then sets it up in a second position to try and catch the tide going out. By the end of the day we wrap both cameras, and head back to town. First day of downloading footage goes until about 1am that morning.

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Day 3 New Zealand

Rey and I drive back to Abel Tasman National Park to recce. We start at Totaranui, then to Awaroa then back to Wainui Bay. All accessible areas in the National Park were beautiful but there are too many campers to be able to get a truly remote setting without footprints etc. So we travel back along the coast to Takaka recce’ing along the way at: Tata Beach, Ligar Bay, Phara, and Rototai.

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Day 2 New Zealand

We meet with Richard Cox, Beach Front Films, who is our local contact in Golden Bay and is going to spend the day with us scouting locations. At the end of a long day we have seen many beautiful places: Patons Rock, Onekaka, Tukurua, Parapapa, Milnthorpe, Collingwood, Pakawau, Whanganui Inlet, Westhaven, Paturau River, Puponga and Farewell Spit.

Late afternoon and we head back to Takaka dropping Richard off at his home in Patons Rock. With a little bit of light left in the day Rey and I continue on towards the Abel Tasman National Park. Trying to get a location with a higher vantage point for the camera, we stop about 20 minutes past Takaka at a lookout point over looking a white sand beach. Unfortunately it’s not quite the location we were after.

During the day it has become apparent that we are going to have to ship shot bags into Nelson from Wellington as there is nothing that we can use in the entire Nelson / Golden Bay region. With a little help from my Queenstown kiwi support group this is organised quite swiftly.

So after driving for 9 hours in a car all day I then have all 8 courier companies laugh at me for attempting to get my gear couriered from Nelson to Takaka at 5pm on a Friday evening. One friendly lady recommended I call the milk company and try to get the milkman to bring my package on his early Saturday morning delivery route.

After exhausting all resources I get back in the car and begin my drive to Nelson. After 1 and a half hours of driving though rain, sun, heavy fog, mountains, sun, light rain, left rain, right rain and sun again I arrive at the airport in Nelson pick up my package and head back doing it all over again, only this time in the dark.

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Day 1 New Zealand

It’s 6:45am and with two taxis full of equipment Rey and I head off to the airport. The Air NZ check-in counters were not as pleased to see our mass luggage as the taxi drivers had been. After an hour and half of talking I manage to get our excess fee reduced by a couple hundred dollars which makes me feel somewhat more at ease with the whole scenario.

When we arrive in Wellington we have to collect and declare all our luggage which leaves us exactly 6 minutes to board our next flight. Rey and I are instructed to run with our 3 trolleys to the gate and onto the tarmac where we watch the equipment get loaded onto the 33 seater Saab going to Nelson. Is it a plane or a car? I’m not exactly sure.

We arrive in Nelson and sit down at the airport café to eat for the first time today. If anyone has ever flown Air NZ they will be aware of the miniscule Turkish sandwiches they serve.

We pick up the hire car and drive 2 hours worth of winding roads around mountains and through farms to Takaka (Golden Bay).

We check in to the motel where we will be staying for the week and get some much needed sleep.

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Day 13 Iceland

We travel an hour out of Reykjavik to a fiord we had surveyed previously. After driving round for an hour and a half viewing the entire inlet we get the feeling we’re not seeing anything new and after viewing yesterdays footage we decide that the tide isn’t going to give us the movement we require. We head back to Reykjavik to re-assess our situation. By 1pm we have booked ourselves on a flight leaving early the next morning. After an interesting trip, with its fair share of frustrations, we’re really hoping we are going to have enough good footage we can use for the ad.

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