Find five photos of anything: that is the challenge of Take 5.
On a wet Tuesday morning in winter, it is a challenge fit for the cardboard box of uncompleted challenges at the far corner of this ODT desk.
But, with just a thin blue line separating the still waters of Lake Hawea from the rain, here we are looking for outstanding photos on the road between Lake Hawea and the well-known blue pools.
We are one reporter and a trickle of tourists.
Amanda Gerodias and Mahalina Celi from San Francisco are on their way to the pools "just for a look".
They stop at the lookout over Lake Hawea as the sun breaks through momentarily.
Two down, three to go.
West of the McKerrow Range, the Makarora Valley is thick with cloud and the rain is steady.
The official figures show 2018 to be pretty standard for Makarora — just over a metre of rain for the first six months.
It was much drier last year.
At the Country Cafe, owner David Howe has a ready answer for rain questions.
"It’s good for the ducks, it’s good for the fish and it’s good for the waterfalls."
Over winter, he passes his time between customers doing maintenance.
His 15th tourist season is looming, and he is well practised at posing behind his cafe’s unusual bar.
Three down, two to go.
A couple from Oturehua have ordered two of his cheese rolls, a pie with a sachet of tomato sauce, a piece of bacon and egg pie and two flat whites.It is the quintessential kiwi brunch, and could easily be one of the chosen five.
But asking to photograph someone’s meal is, well ... hard to do.
And there are other failures.
The camera upsets a semi-tame wood pigeon in a kowhai tree outside the cafe and it swoops off around the corner, a farmer with a shotgun shooting starlings scoping nest sites under his eaves prefers not to be photographed, and a man and a dog on an old tractor from the pages of Footrot Flats escapes down a narrow driveway.
Two to go still.
So, here we are on the track to the blue pools.
A dozen tourists stand on a bridge and photograph each other in the rain.
One does a headstand, and his companions apologise to everyone for his behaviour.
Next to the swing bridge over the pools there is a photograph showing the pools being blue.
But, in the rain, under grey skies last Tuesday, the blue pools were green.
And, here is the proof.
One to go.
There is a rainbow over Lake Hawea, but it turns out digitally dull.
Cabbage trees and quaint, narrow bridges are too tempting to ignore, but in retrospect are too common to be photographically outstanding.
So thanks to the sheep of Glen Dene Station for turning on an increasingly rare photo opportunity, as we head back to dry land east of the mountains.
