Woolshed Creek - Canterbury

Date: Saturday 16 August 2025 - sunrise

Location: Woolshed Creek, Canterbury

I had only been living in the South Island a couple of weeks when local photographer, Josh, reached out said he’d be keen to go shoot somewhere. I didn’t know the region at all so he recommended Woolshed Creek out near Mount Somers in the Ashburton Lakes area. I had a quick Google and Instagram search and it looked mint. We locked in the trip, a 4am departure from Oxford for me, to get there in time for sunrise and the golden light that would follow.

I guess I was pretty excited because I woke up an hour earlier than my alarm was set that morning. I grabbed all my gear, ate a banana and some Weetbix, and got on the road. It was cold and there was potential for patches of black ice along the way as I followed close to the mountains all the way there. The last few kilometres of the drive turned into gravel and as I finally made it to the Woolshed Creek carpark there were only a few cars there, and only one person getting ready to walk, Josh. We introduced ourselves, consulted the DoC sign for the walk and started our little adventure in the pitch black.

I don’t remember much of the walk other than breathing hard and pretending to be fitter than I was. It’s just one foot in front of the other at that time of the morning, no view to be had as we inched closer to our destination. As we neared the top I could see some nice pastel pink clouds developing and rattled off a few shots before continuing on. It was a beautiful still morning and although cold, the sun was so nice once it rose up over the hills.

I was happy with the early cloud conditions and as they burnt off we had some wonderful golden light touching the distant mountain ranges. It was a great morning of wandering around taking photos and even better cos Josh is a good bugger. It’s always nice hanging out with like-minded people.

You can check out Josh’s work here