Lone Tree of Wanaka - "Sun and Shield"

 

For the Lord God is a sun and shield; 

The Lord will give grace and glory; 

No good thing will He withhold 

for those who walk uprightly.

Psalm 84:11 NKJV

The Lone Tree of Wanaka

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.  When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior, I give Egypt for your ransom, Cush and Seba in your stead.

Isaiah 43:2-3 NIV

Lonely for "The Lone Tree"

It was 14 months ago I saw the Lone Tree on Lake Wanaka.  We search throughout Wanaka looking for the tree.  Photographers in Queenstown has made the tree very popular with tourist by selling prints of the tree in the art shows.  That was how I discovered the tree.  I only had a rainy afternoon and the next morning to take pictures of the tree.  The tree looks extraordinary in its environment by the way it is frame with the shore and trees in a semi-circle on the left and the mountains in the background.  In Florida and south Georgia, it is common to see trees growing in shadow lakes and swamps but not as colorful and flamboyant as the lone tree of Lake Wanaka.

A Lonely Moor

Speak Of The North! A Lonely Moor

Speak of the North! A lonely moor
Silent and dark and tractless swells,
The waves of some wild streamlet pour
Hurriedly through its ferny dells.

Profoundly still the twilight air,
Lifeless the landscape; so we deem
Till like a phantom gliding near
A stag bends down to drink the stream.

And far away a mountain zone,
A cold, white waste of snow-drifts lies,
And one star, large and soft and lone,
Silently lights the unclouded skies.
                                

Charlotte Brontë

The Lonely Hunter

"The Lonely Hunter"

by Fiona MacLeod

Green branches, green branches, I see you beckon; I follow!

Sweet is the place you guard, there in the rowan-tree hollow.

There he lies in the darkness, under the frail white flowers,

Heedless at last, in the silence, of these sweet midsummer hours.

But sweeter, it may be, the moss whereon he is sleeping now,

And sweeter the fragrant flowers that may crown his moon-white brow:

And sweeter the shady place deep in an Eden hollow

Wherein he dreams I am with him -- and, dreaming, whispers, "Follow!"

Green wind from the green-gold branches, what is the song you bring?

What are all songs for me, now, who no more care to sing?

Deep in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,

But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

Green is that hill and lonely, set far in a shadowy place;

White is the hunter's quarry, a lost-loved human face:

O hunting heart, shall you find it, with arrow of failing breath,

Led o'er a green hill lonely by the shadowy hound of Death?

Green branches, green branches, you sing of a sorrow olden,

But now it is midsummer weather, earth-young, sun-ripe, golden:

Here I stand and I wait, here in the rowan-tree hollow,

But never a green leaf whispers, "Follow, oh, Follow, Follow!"

O never a green leaf whispers, where the green-gold branches swing:

O never a song I hear now, where one was wont to sing.

Here in the heart of Summer, sweet is life to me still,

But my heart is a lonely hunter that hunts on a lonely hill.

A Lone Bird Perched on a Broken Limb

 

 

The Lonely Tree on a sunny day with its top branches reaching into the blue sky.  Unlike photo images I saw at the art show in Queenstown of Lake Wanaka, the waters were never still.  Reflections of the tree and nearby mountains were broken by the waves.  The wind comes off the mountains and the waves are always moving.  I had a difficult time seeing the bird standing on the broken limb.  His dark coloring blended into the tree like a extension of the limb.  A lone bird perched on a broken limb in the lonely tree.

The Lonely Tree After the Rain

 

 

Misty clouds settled on the mountains and the lake reflected a gray sky.  The sun did not come out this day. 

Lonely Tree of Lake Wanaka

The Lonely Tree is a Wanaka legend and was one of the top sights that my friend and I wanted to see.  Local Photographers have made the tree famous in art and craft shows in Queenstown.  We meet several couples who planned to search for the tree once they arrived in Wanaka.  If you Google "Lone Tree of Lake Wanaka" hundred's of photo shop images will pop up.  Since I have seen the tree in fog, rain and in sunshine, I know the real colors of the lake and mountains.  Photographers have made surreal images of the tree but I feel the tree has beauty on it's own.  I am from the south and it is not unusual to see trees growing in lakes in Georgia and Florida but this tree has a graceful and solitary feeling in it's loneliness away from the shore.