danielmurray.nz

Quite why it took me so long to visit one of the most crazily beautiful locations New Zealand has to offer I’ll never know. The Coromandel, a region centred on a peninsula located around 60 km from Auckland (as the tui flies), is a vast area of dramatic headlands, golden beaches, bird-filled forests, and volcanic peaks. We only spent the briefest of times in the area, but such was the immediate falling in love that we returned with the rest of the family for a longer trip just a few weeks ago. The rugged nature of much of the terrain means the roads tend to be narrow and windy, but that’s a good thing with the more leisurely pace allowing you to soak up more of the scenery.

It’s been a little over 9 months ago since we ran our first @purephotoadventures.nz tour. In a short time we’ve had the privilege of taking 40 enthusiastic photographers, from New Zealand and abroad, on four epic photography adventures around the most incredible locations New Zealand has to offer. Rach, Lee and I have worked so incredibly hard to make sure these tours were an amazing experience and delivered great value for money. Judging by the feedback we’ve received to date we’ve been justifiably chuffed our tours have hit the mark.

Who exactly said this first isn’t entirely clear: it might’ve been Buddha, it could’ve been Aerosmith, but for all I know it might be one of the several thousand Instagrammers using it as their bio tagline. Whether it’s a trip from Nelson to Takaka, Christchurch to Greymouth, Queenstown to Milford Sound, and all the curvy alignments in between, a journey along a South Island road is every as bit as thrilling as the destination. As I mention in a little more detail in A Brief Guide to the South Island for Landscape Photographers, traveling around the South Island via the road network is generally straight-forward. And if you’re going to get one of those shots of “someone walking wistfully down the centreline of a major highway into the distance pretending it’s not a major highway but rather the standard way we walk from A to B around here