We’re one of those Kiwi families that camp at the same spot at Glendhu Bay, Lake Wanaka every summer. It’s one of our traditions, and as Miss C(15) has grown up it’s been the ideal summer holiday, full of sun, fresh water, adventure and new friends.

This year I left my fishing rods at home to devote a little more time to mountain biking. I love the physical challenge as well as the opportunity to find some new spots to shoot the landscape from. The Minaret track from West Wanaka appealed, so I tore off along it, only to discover it’s part of the Red Bull Defiance course.

As they say, you live and learn and in my case, ride through the muscle cramps, drag your exhausted body and bike around a gully to get around a stranded truck carrying beehives, and coast back to camp. Somehow, I packed over 100 km and 2,000 vertical metres of riding into our holiday. The Minaret ride alone made up half of that tally.

While I take a good chunk of camera kit on holiday, I’m a lot less fussy about what I record these adventures on than I used to be. Mostly these days, it’s a combo of phone and GoPro camera, sometimes a mirrorless DSLR. The fun comes first.

Speaking of which, I couldn’t resist having fun with Wanaka’s best known photo trope, that Wanaka tree. Rather than join the queue of eager landscape photogs who line up to shoot a waterlogged willow, I decided to be a little more creative and shoot something more emblematic of my holiday.

And now it’s back to work. Prints to deliver, young photographers to nurture, events to shoot. And of course, the next adventure to plot.