By rights we shouldn't even be here. But we are. It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end...

Having had just about all the adventure we could handle the day before, we decided today that we were going to go back to a place where we were familiar, Queenstown. Leaving Mavora, we retraced our steps past Mossburn and up around Lake Wakatipu (80km long) to the elbow of the lake where Queenstown is located. It was just as we had left it: sunny. Not sure what it is about the geography of the place, but for some reason it always seemed to clear up and get nice as we headed into town... This might have also been the fact that we had settled on two happy things: One: that we would stay in a motel, not the horrid van, and Two: that we were going to make more pasta!

We swung by the supermarket before continuing up back through Peter Jackson's valley to the Shotover Lodge, where we checked into our room. It was nowhere near as impressive as the last we had stayed at, but it was just as welcoming after the sort of chaos that we seem to attract on a daily basis. Once we were settled in, we brought our ingredients up to the kitchen, which we found was a restaurant quality set-up with fancy stoves, utensils, and kitchenware. It served as the perfect place to prepare the most delicious, massive pasta dish ever! While enjoying our amazing lunch/supper combination, along with a mudcake and two bagels, we tuned in to a few random movies and TV shows.

The next morning (on Nov 16) we woke up and, deciding to test the limits of how long we could stay past the typical 10 am check-out time, we took our time. We ate the other half of our gigantic pasta dish. On the itinerary today was a stop-off at a place that we almost missed, most likely due to the fact that it was in the direction of Moke Lake (A failed camping option on Day 14) and Dart Stables (A failed tour on Day 16) and we wanted to forget all about that direction entirely. It didn't help that it was out of order in the guide book either, and we only realized we missed it at Mavora Lakes when looking for any little thing we could do to fill in five empty days between now and our departure date.

So it was that we headed North of Queenstown to the Twelve Mile Delta, another Department of Conservation Campground. The name of the general location was about the only thing our guide book was specific about though. Sometimes it gets things right on, and we end up stumbling onto a site right away. Other times, it's ridiculously vague in direction or parking, which is an issue considering there has also been ten years of natural growth and man-made development in any given area. Nevertheless, after reading and re-reading the book, staring at an area map, and fumbling with GPS co-ordinates on an inaccurate GPS, we finally decided to just go with the most likely option and hope for the best. "Follow the path and you will cross a bridge over the Twelve Mile Delta stream" the guide book said, not explaining which path or bridge to take in particular. We followed a path. We crossed a bridge with a gorge. We climbed a hill and approximately ten minutes from the trail's start, just as the book said, we found ourselves in Ithilien, right where Sam, Frodo and Gollum camped.

The only downfall of a bright sunny day is that it makes the Ipad hard to see, which makes identifying an exact location so much harder. Fortunately, we were able to make out one thing that changes very, very, very, slowly: Mountains. Using mountains to line up our shots, we re-created a few scenes out of the movie and then moved onto the bank where in the movie the trio watched Faramir's ambush of the Oliphaunts. A few more re-enactments and we were ready to go back. Our final destination on the itinerary for today had been Alexandra, a town on a zigzagging route to the West Coast that would lead us past the film sites used for the Rohirran village and the Hobbit's Warg Chase. Unfortunately, upon reading further in the book, we realized that to get to the site it would require driving on a dirt road with devastatingly strong wind gusts and again, us with no 4WD or insurance on unsealed roads. We could pay the local landowner to take us out there, but it would also take longer for us to get to the West Coast taking this route overall, and so rather than travelling in stages and reaching the West Coast later, we decided were just going to make a run for it and drive the three hour stretch all at once.

Once past Queenstown, we were into the territory of places we had passed a week ago but never stopped at, as it was getting late by the time we were making the last leg of our journey to the city. We stopped at a fresh fruit orchard just outside of a town we spotted a week earlier, one with a bunch of giant fruit statues on their town sign. There, despite already having some fruit, we caved in and bought a $10 fruit deal, which included 1kg of giant apples, 1kg of oranges, 1kg of kiwifruit, 4 pears and a lemon. The theory is that we will send our vitamin count through the roof just before travelling, so our bodies will be supercharged enough to beat off any sicknesses we happen to be exposed to on the way back home.

We arrived at Oamaru just before suppertime, but we were honestly still not hungry after our massive breakfast, supplemented with a pear each and some chocolate for lunch, so we drove around town looking for things to do. The library had free wifi, so we made the best of that and located a few penguin colonies nearby. By colonies though, they mean one of two things; at the Blue Eyed Penguin colony, they mean a place protected from the public by a giant wall, which could only be crossed by paying for the tour. At the Yellow Eyed Penguin colony, they meant a place where nests are in the bush-line of the beach, and if anyone is on the beach, the penguins aren't. Needless to say, with around thirty people watching from a distant viewing area, some oblivious idiots passed three signs and two fence gates to take a stroll down the beach. The end result was that only one brave penguin crossed from sea to nest, and that was so far out that it was hardly a moving speck to the naked eye, and not much more to a camera lens at full zoom.

A bit disappointed, but at least happy to have seen anything at all, we headed back through town, where we marvelled at a section of old buildings all preserved with their Victorian era limestone facades. Another marvel was the fact that every single motel, motor home and hotel seemed to have no vacancy, and we had no idea why. Upon arriving at our planned destination, a Holiday Park a short drive out of town, we found out why. We happened to arrive in Oamaru on the eve of one of their most important days, an annual Victorian Fete. As to what that was, we had no clue, but we were damned if we were going to miss out on something that drew such massive crowds and involved hundreds of vendors, events, and people dressed up in period clothing from the 1800s.

The last day of exploration and entertainment in New Zealand turned out, like almost every other one, a cold and rainy day. Sun would have been too much to ask for on our very last experience in the country. We headed into the chaos that had become historic downtown Oamaru, which had become so busy that we had to park several blocks away. We only found the event by following others heading in that direction, which was easy enough considering some of them were dressed large dresses, suits, or elaborate top hats. Eventually, we made it to the event itself, which was blocked off by a white picket fence and a bower. We paid our entrance fees, and headed into the milling crowds, made up of curious tourists and costumed New Zealanders.

There were events going throughout the day, set up in and around several historic buildings we had driven past the evening before. Events included feats such as the World Stonecutting championships, the National Pipe Smoking Competition, the Costume Parade, Celtic Orchestras, Harpists, and the "Intergalactic Uke Orchestra" which ended up playing (and coughing) on the same stage at the same time as the Pipe Smokers. Vendors along the streets added to the chaos, where local and national merchants sold everything from candy to fossils (both of which held our attention for a while). It was a celebration of New Zealand culture and a perfect way to wrap up a month abroad. All in all the experience was a unique and fun way to spend the morning, similar to a renaissance fair but in and around actual buildings, rather than fake, cartoony structures. Out of all our experiences in New Zealand, it is definitely one of the ones that we would recommend to anyone travelling in the country, if you happen to be in the area on the one day that it goes on each year.

To finish it all up, we experienced a final beach, this one made up of millions of skipping stones of various sizes. All the ones that people throw into water must end up here. The waves of the Pacific kept us from getting too close to the edge, but we were able to find some of the wonders of the ocean further up the beach. Only a minute along the beach and, to our shock, Janelle looked down towards the water and was startled by movement just a few feet away on the lower terrace. A lone seal shuffled a bit, looked at us, grumbled indignantly then turned around and gallumped (how seals walk?) out into the ocean. With one last look of condemnation shot back at us for ruining her slumber, she vanished into the waves. This prompted us to go get the camera, and of course we saw no other seals.

We stayed at the same campsite again, but luckily as there were no longer a bajillion people in town we got the regular rate for non-powered campsites. Made soup for supper, and then baked a few apples for dessert. This served two purposes. It was a good way to use up our butter, sugar and cinnamon, and also it was delicious. We liked it so much that we baked four more apples for breakfast.

The next day didn't really do much, nor are we doing much of note right now besides relaxing, packing up, and counting down until home-time. It has definitely been an adventure, and at a few times during the trip we wanted nothing more than some magic to instantly transport us back to Canada. BUT overall we had some crazy experiences we won't soon forget and it will be fun (and greatly annoying to others) to watch the Lord of the Rings and get to point excitedly and yell "We were there!" every few minutes.

This marks the end of our adventures and perhaps the last blog... maybe we'll put one more up of the differences/peculiarities that we noticed between New Zealand and home. But we will sadly have no more Middle Earth stories to report. 

We made it 'There' and now we just have to get 'Back Again.'

Look for your friends, but do not trust to hope. It has forsaken these lands...

During our adventures, the weather seemed to always do the exact opposite of what we wanted. As a result, when we take a picture of a Lord of the Rings location, the movie scene that we compare to will depict it sunny, but we get it rainy, or when it is actually supposed to look miserable, we get shots of a bright, cheery landscape instead.

On the 14th we were hoping for sun but woke up to fog and cold winds, so we decided to first head to The Dead Marshes. However, they were only visible from a distance, and any recognizable location was out of the question. Our next stop was better; from a viewpoint overlooking a river we saw another shot the River Anduin curving off into the distance. Hoping for a better look, we walked down a mucky dirt road for about five minutes before realizing the road didn't actually get to the river itself, only paralleled it. Te Anau was our next stop, and for a town that supposedly thrives on tourism, it was rather unimpressive. It was like walking around in Fort Frances, with half the businesses closed and the other half portraying faded facades and business fronts. Resigning ourselves that it was not in our best interests to stop here, we drove back in the direction we came from, and took an access road up towards Mavora Lakes.

Fourty-five minutes later up a dirt road, we reached another Lord of the Rings location. In the second movie, the Orcs who captured Merry and Pippin are killed and burned by the Rohirrim. The location of this orc funeral pyre, where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli find them at the edge of Fangorn Forest, is just off the road in a farmer's field. Following the advice of our guidebook, we hopped the fence and climbed to where, using a combination of the Ipad, guidebook, and what we could see of the surrounding landscape, we were able to line up a few shots in the nearly exact location they filmed in.

Reaching Mavora Lakes, which is protected in a Department of Conservation campground, we had a quick meal of soup at the south end of the campground. It was quick mostly because there were ravenous black-flies about, which drove us off quite promptly. We then drove to the far end of the campground and wandered out into the forest following a semi-marked trail that was littered with fake, colourfully painted mushrooms for some reason. At the base of the ridge we followed the trail to the top and made it to another location, the scene where Frodo, Merry and Pippin hide from the Orcs at Amon Hen. At this spot it was easy to take pictures that are noticeably right out of the film due to the large unmistakable stump Merry and Pippin used and the nearby tree Frodo hid behind that were, for the most part, unchanged.

*hiding as orcs run past*

"Frodo!"  "Hide here! Quick! Come on!"

*shakes head*

"What's he doin?"  ..."He's leavin."

"No!... "Hey! Hey You! Over here! Hey! Over here!"

Pleased with our success thus far, we returned to the park's entrance where we crossed off yet another film location from a suspension bridge across the lake's out-flowing river: a shot of the Fellowship as their boats turn from the Silverlode River in Lothlorian into the River Anduin.

We then returned to the vehicle and caught up on some photo editing and journals, but this was cut short when the computer started to have issues charging from the vehicle's battery. We tried pushing the adapter back into the slot, and then a far more sinister cause crossed our minds. Joe climbed up front rapidly, reaching for the key desperately to turn the vehicle on and recharge the battery, to no avail. Once, twice, three times, over and over we tried to turn the van on, but the battery was well and truly dead. With dark approaching, Joe ventured out into the New Zealand wilderness, heading further into the park to contact someone, anyone, with a pair of jumper cables to revive the crippled campervan. Thank goodness there were no large predators  or Uruk-Hai in the forests. Through the kindness of a pair of Spanish immigrants and a native New Zealander we got the car going just as it was getting too dark to see. So we drove into the park, found a quiet spot, left the car idling for another twenty minutes just to be safe, then went to sleep still fending off stupid annoying blackflies.

Behold the Argonath, the Pillars of the Kings...

On the 11th we embarked on our last booked adventure, a 3 hour 4WD tour around the Queenstown area with some focus on Lord of the Rings areas. Luckily it did not rain for this one, which was a great improvement over the disappointment of yesterday. After leaving our hotel room, we stood outside and waited for our ride - a heavy duty land cruiser capable of doing some off-roading. Joe saw such a vehicle drive up towards the hotel, then watched somewhat confused as it kept on going off down in the other direction. "Were we in a vehicle that says Nomad Safaris and Safari of the Scenes on it?" he asked. "Yeah, probably." Janelle replied. Just as we started to worry, the vehicle in question turned up, having turned around and raced back to get us. That's the confusion you get when you have two similarly named places right down the road from each other (Oaks Shores and Oaks Resort). We are pleased to report that our van's licence plate said Thorin on it. Apparently each vehicle in the fleet has a Hobbit themed plate, and seeing others with plates such as Smaug and Bombur confirmed this.

Our tour guide was named Graham, and he had a demeanor of a dwarf about him, if not the stature. He, like most of our good tour guides to this point, had his interactions with Peter Jackson and Co. Back during the Lord of the Rings, he was offered the chance to be a Rider of Rohan, being from a farm and knowing how to ride, but he turned it down due to other work commitments. Despite this lack of immediate connection, his knowledge of the film sites was commendable. Right away after picking up our other guests we were out of Queenstown and up a mountain (the Remarkables Ski Area) that offered great views of the area. Up and up we went, until finally we stopped short of our goal, but only because the clouds were literally only ten to twenty feet above us. Here we were shown Deer Park Heights from above, the setting for both Rohan (Rohirran refuges and Warg battle) and locations shot in the Hobbit. Unfortunately, we were not able to visit these sites close up, as the farmer who owned the land got tired of people vandalising and being idiots in areas where he had valuable livestock and show animals.

Back down the mountain we went, and at this point the sun was beginning to burn away the clouds. Warm weather raising our spirits, we arrived in our next location. Just before doubling back onto a narrow dirt road to get to the site, we crossed a large bridge, and to our left was an older, smaller bridge. What was remarkable about this bridge was that people willingly throw themselves off it strapped to giant rubber bands. What was more remarkable is that that bridge is where, twenty five years ago, a man was able to commercialize it for the very first time, meaning he could get people to pay money to throw themselves off strapped to giant rubber bands. It was the birthplace of Bungie-Jumping. 

The narrow part is where the Argonath stood

More important to us was that the site we got to halfway along the narrow dirt road, leading to a winery, was the gorge where the Argonath was digitally added in the Lord of the Rings. The site was majestic enough without two giant Gondorian statues. Interesting film tidbit: Peter Jackson was well aware of people who studied films to notice errors, and so he put one into the film on purpose to see who would notice. As the Fellowship passes through the Argonath, the statues both have their left hand raised. As Aragorn looks back, one of the statues has its right hand raised, so he actually had 3 of these incredibly detailed statues built and then digitalized for this shot.

Another tidbit is a rather unfortunate fact. True to the books, Peter Jackson built an orc camp alongside the river after the Argonath as it was J.R.R. Tolkien mentioned. Tragically, this coincided with the massive flood New Zealand got during the filming, and before the film crews could shoot, the camp was entirely destroyed.

Our next stop was Arrowtown, where we left roads behind and took the trek towards Macetown, a ghost town and remnant of the mining boom that led to major settlement of the area. The road boasts twenty five river crossings. Our heavy duty vehicle could only handle four before the water became too high (due to severe rain the day before) and we had to turn back. Just after the fourth ford, we were able to witness another remnant of the mining boom: gold in the river! After hot chocolate, cookies and actually good fruit cake, we were given a chance to pan for gold, and with a little help were able to find the tiniest little bits of rare metal (Janelle and I were the only ones to find any)! Not enough to pay back our trip, but definitely a cool souvenir. Back near the start of the track again, we turned right out into the river and stopped with water rushing all about us, where we found ourselves at the Ford of Bruinen, where the Black Riders were swept away.

The Remarkables

Our last stop was not Lord of the Rings focused, but it did involve another mountain. Driving up the perilous, winding roads of Skipper's Pass we were glad to have an experienced driver and a heavy duty (but not bulky) vehicle.  We were also glad the driver waited until the way back to tell us of his own experience in driving to and from work in a bus every day on those roads, even in winter, and in one condition rolling right over the edge as his driver continued on despite skating rink-like conditions. Still, the drive resulted in some incredible views of such wild landscape that it was easy to believe we were in Middle Earth. En-route back to Queenstown, we also drove through a huge, beautiful valley. It turns out it was land that Peter Jackson actually owns. He had purchased it because he loved the natural, unaltered view of the valley and the oncoming mountains and lake. Rather than see it become commercially developed with hotels, vineyards and such, he bought the whole stretch and left the few little farms on it to continue as stewards of the land.

Arriving in Queenstown, we were dropped off at our hotel. If that alone was the only difference between today and yesterday, it would have been a great day, but as it stands the day was fantastic! To top it all off, we had another good supper of curry!

The next morning we were able to sleep in a little as the night previous we decided to call Reception to see if we could arrange a late check out. Turns out our special fancy room already had a late check out! So, not having to leave until noon, we woke up slow, had a rice porridge breakfast, then lunch of leftover curry and a pack of instant curry side pasta, then slowly packed up our things and left the hotel. It had become our 'home away from home', being the place we spent the most amount of time at in New Zealand, and Queenstown will likely forever be our most favourite big city in all the country.

Our first stop was to escape the sun and head into a movie theatre to see Thor 2. The film itself was good, but the theatre was not worth the money as it was quite small, quiet and had yellow lines throughout the screen (luckily we went on cheap night and 'only' paid $14 per adult rather than the whopping regular price of $19). Following the movie, we tried the famous Fergburger (apparently enjoyed by Orlando Bloom), a burger so good that the hole in the wall where it was served has lineups outside for almost the entire working day. The burgers were pricy ($12), but they baked their own buns throughout the day and it was definitely some of the best cooked, large sized burgers we've ever had to pay for (still not better than our pasta though).

There is no curse in Elvish, Entish, or the tongues of men for this treachery...

On November 10th we went on a horseback riding adventure called 'The Ride of the Rings.'

So... horseback riding in New Zealand... it sounds romantic, adventurous, exciting. 

In reality it was miserable, cold, wet and boring.

At least we got to see the edge of Fangorn Forest, a very defined and long tree-line. We also got to ride through the forest of Lothlorien, right past the area where Gimli and company get ambushed by the elves, "a dwarf breaths so loud we could have shot him in the dark." Apparently as a gift to the Paradise region, Peter Jackson had the trail put in for everyone to enjoy. We also saw the location of where they had constructed Beorn's House, which will apparently feature in the second Hobbit film. During filming one of the trees in the shot fell over from the wind, as they had already done so much work, Peter Jackson wanted to CG it in so they wouldn't have to start over, this wasn't possible so he had to go to Weta to build a replica of it, costing him $100,000 in the end. For those keeping track, that's a $600,000 foliage budget, and that's only for two trees. 

We also saw the Wizard's Vale, though in the film for the Isengard Valley they had digitally added a forest of trees over the majority of it. The river that made up the shot is a braided river, glacially formed, and is one of the largest examples of such a river in the world. And we saw Amon Hen, the area in the first film where the fellowship breaks. We saw where Boromir died and the hill where the orcs ran down upon hearing the horn of Gondor. Apparently during the movie the shots of the orcs are so short because the orcs could only run down the hill at full speed for a good two or three seconds in their masks and costumes before falling and injuring themselves and others. To further complicate matters, a zip-line camera designed to rush down the hill with the orcs was strung too low, resulting in the camera colliding with not one but two of the orcs during shooting.

Unfortunately, the time it took to read about the Lord of the Rings locations of today is about how long we spent visiting them in person. The rest of the time we spent on the backs of seriously unimpressed horses that, broken of all free will, followed the leader like a train on rails. Being at the back of the line, the extent of our ride was listening to faint, broken conversations between the guide and people further up the line, and dealing with pelting rain and strong winds. The horses themselves weren't even that interesting. At least Janelle got a pretty one named Court, and I got a seventeen year old named Scar who, when he was a year old, was found with a metal fencepost stuck through his side. To top it all off, we spent another hour driving back to Queenstown, where we were unceremoniously dumped off in the middle of town (after being picked up that morning from our hotel). It was still raining and there was a forty-five minute walk back to our hotel. The sun partly came out halfway along and dried us out a bit, but did absolutely nothing to improve our impression of Dart Stables' incredibly mediocre experience. 

Our hotel room was our saving grace for a second day in a row. We returned to make an amazing pasta with fresh vegetables, alfredo, cheddar cheese, feta cheese, and most importantly, Peppadews, which we ate while watching shows like The Middle, and a new show called Total Black Out, which had us laughing out loud despite the day's earlier events. Contestants are put into a room that is completely black, and in three rounds they have to identify objects by feel, taste, and then smell. When it is so completely dark your mind starts to play tricks on you and everyone on the show got very jumpy, skittish and fearful of what may be in front of them. The funniest was watching them shriek and scream after their fingers grazed a pineapple. 

Ride, ride to ruin and the world's ending...

The day we went to Pelennor Fields was a combination of relaxation, excitement, and total chaos.

We got up rather slowly as our tour was not until 1 pm, we made a delectable lunch of beans (after an even better breakfast of jam smeared on soup crackers) and waited around until it was time to leave.

Once in town, we quickly got bored and sought out free Wifi, which was easily obtainable once we found the town's library, which happened to be in the local school. We milked the free internet for all it was worth, then raced to the Musterer's Hut Cafe to meet our tour guide for Pelennor Fields. She was late, which had us questioning whether or not it was the right location. If that was the worst thing to happen that day though, it would have been a very tame day indeed.

En-route to the Fields, we learned that we weren't the only ones who had a crazy month so far. Our guide explained that the reason we had to reschedule was the shooting of a B-list movie called Slow West (with young Magneto actor in it). The film, set in Colorado, rationally chose the middle of Pelennor Fields for a Cowboy house, so filming there was making tours tricky. This was made quite clear when, after our first photo shoot at the stream Gandalf crossed entering Gondor, we arrived at the edge of the farmers field only to find out the Slow West film crew had locked the gate in such a way that made it nearly impossible to open it back up again.

A call to the film crew, then the farmer who owned the land, eventually got us into the Pelennor Fields location. There we began to see how experienced our tour guide actually was. Not only did she know every film trick and tidbit about the Lord of the Rings and their time in Twizel, she also boasted being one of 200 extras on the Hobbit (the best dead body in all of Laketown, with legs sticking out of a boat).

She told us for the scene where the Riders of Rohan enter the fields, they had built the largest blue screen in the southern hemisphere for the cavalry. We also learnt that Faramir was such a poor rider they had to put him on a barrel on the side of a motorized vehicle which drove alongside the other horse riders. Also, the horses on set became so accustomed to charging at the word 'action', they had to change that word each day (to Christmas tree, etc) or else they'd get random horses galloping across the field when they were not supposed to be. Also, since they were so short-staffed for Orc extras, they were able to recruit the trainees from the New Zealand army as there was a nearby basecamp, however these men got waaay too into the fighting and even started trying to assassinate the main stars during their important dialogue scenes, so due to these 'rogue orcs' they had to move a few of the scenes into a set. Amidst all the information, we got to play with more props and costumes than we've seen all trip!

After being dropped off back in Twizel and saying farewell to our guide, we planned a nice leisurely trip to the nearest free campground. On the way, we stopped at a miniscule grocery store for some supper where we picked up sausages, cheese and tomato paste (we miss real ketchup!). We also found peppadews, an amazing sweet pepper we have sought since Africa! We got a jar for future use, and then carried on. The campground proved a bust. Busy campsites, a horrible toilet, and ridiculous winds led to our leaving shortly after supper. So much for relaxation...

Our sights set on a campground just past Queenstown, we headed south. As we drew close to it, we were struck by the natural beauty of the place; mountains ran right down to a bright blue lake, and with the sun setting it all looked very surreal. We were so struck, in fact, that Joe failed to notice the empty gas tank light come on until after we were right through Queenstown itself. For those not expecting it, the town has a way of sneaking up on you rather suddenly. For the second time in a row this trip we found ourselves on a mountain running on fumes with night approaching. Twelve kilometers out of town we turned back, only three clicks from the campground that boasted being only six kilometers outside of town. We were over a mountain by then, in a farmer's field surrounded by sheep and cows. Admitting defeat, we turned around and headed back into town for a gas station and a Holiday Park.

After filling up, we headed to a Motor Park right up the road. There, Joe got out and secured our campsite, and upon returning drew the keys from his pocket to notice something horribly wrong. Half the key was missing!!! He quickly checked his pocket before realizing that the bottom half of the key was in fact stuck right in the ignition, still pushing all the pins needed to make the van run! With a way to drive the van, but not lock it, we drove to our campsite where we spent a very worrisome night in one of the brightest, most crammed holiday parks yet.

It was not so bad in the end as when we finally had our stay at a hotel we were able to get a locksmith to come and get it out and make a new key (which he had difficulty doing since the original key was not cut to the proper size and was all messed up, not the original at any rate). Thank goodness for our lovely hotel stay though, we needed it!!

Where is the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?...

We are falling behind with this! Not sure how many people are actually reading it though, but we thought we'd put up another post of the adventure we had in Edoras last week.

So we had set out one morning to Rohan, the realm of the Horse Lords. A grey-green all-terrain beast of a truck was our steed that bore us to Edoras, the iconic city of the Rohirrim.

Leaving our campervan behind, we set out through rush-hour traffic heading south with a small group. After a brief stop to pick up our lunch at a town half an hour south, we turned west and headed for the mountains. En-route, the sunny skies that greeted us this morning were veiled by clouds that reached out from the mountaintops. Fortunately though, they were not low enough to hide the peaks from view. According to our tour-guide, there have been days when the clouds have been hardly higher than the truck we were travelling in.

To distract us from the gloom, we were treated to video content giving us a beginner's guide to the Lord of the Rings, the Rohirram, and Edoras. It is interesting how many people actually attend the tours that do not know anything about the series. One girl had only seen the third film... as Edoras is predominant in the second she likely had no idea what was happening. Another man did not like the series at all, though he was with his wife who was a big fan. Along the ride we also were treated to filming bloopers, commentaries and deleted scenes, some which we had never even seen before. So it was that we made our way further and further up into the mountains, distracted from the video only by the tour-guide's stories of crazy tours and his mention of our entering the technical 'border' of the Riddermark. We would soon get our first glimpse of Edoras, otherwise known as Mount Sunday, though as our guide mentioned earlier; it would be a rather small glimpse at first. As the story goes though, we wouldn't even have seen a glimpse if not for the luck of Peter Jackson's film scouts.

In the planning stages of the Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson sent out his scouts to the four corners of the country, trying to find a place that fit perfectly the rich description provided by J.R.R. Tolkien in his books. To find a small rocky outcrop alone in the middle of expansive rolling fields, with a glittering silver stream and a border of white-capped mountains, proved to be an impossible task. Admitting defeat, the primary location scout for Edoras booked a plane from Queenstown to Wellington, where he would meet with Peter Jackson to discuss a computer-generated location. With the most incredible fortune, en-route to Wellington he was in a window seat, and just happened to be looking out the window while crossing over Mount Sunday. He spotted the location, quickly looked at a map to figure out where he was, and upon arrival in Wellington promptly booked a flight back to Christchurch where he rented a car and raced out to the location. It was so perfect that when he eventually met with Peter Jackson, they had found their location for Edoras.

Getting down nearer to the site, we discovered the reason for the 4WD transportation. At the end of a dirt road, we arrived at the edge of the farmer's lands, where many other tourists were milling about and taking far off shots of the area. We wondered at if we were to be stuck in the same situation as them, until our guide got out, unlocked the gate onto the farmer's land, drove us through and locked the gate back up. We then proceeded to drive down a road/river (lots of rain, which we learned had a history of stranding tour groups on the mountain) and almost right up to the mountain. We crossed over the Silver Stream, the same one Gandalf splashed through on Shadowfax in the movies, then made the arduous climb up to the spot where the Golden Hall once stood. Nothing structural now remains of the site, but using pictures the guide was able to lay out the setting for us. It turns out the guide even got to see the site in its complete form a few days prior to the movies and had high phrases for the Golden Hall and the amount of detail that went into it.

Wielding props from the movies (the sword of Aragorn and a flag of Rohan), we took pictures on the top of the mountain (which looked like more of a hill compared to the snow-capped ones all around us). The only difficulty was the wind, which during set construction was blowing at roughly 100km/hour. During filming it got up to 110km/hour, and it has been recorded at speeds up to 200km/hour. It was less than all that for our tour, but still a pain to deal with. At least it kept it from being too hot.

We then had a champagne picnic lunch with sandwiches and other nice treats (like delicious chocolate cake) provided by a cafe in a nearby town. We took some last shots and then made the trek back into Christchurch.  

There is only one Lord of the Ring...

This may seem a bit off to fans of the books and movies, but the other day we visited the creator of the One Ring, and contrary to what Gandalf would have us believe, the Ring maker lives in Nelson, not Mordor. The One Ring was forged not in the fiery depths at the heart of Mount Doom, but rather a small shop called Jens Hansen, comprising two corners of Trafalgar Square. Something tells me that wouldn't be the best place to go talking about destroying one of these rings though, as the real deal can cost upwards of a few thousand dollars, depending on the quality of the metal, the inscriptions, and how much of the Dark Lord's life-essence you want infused into the finished product.

 

The ring was one of fifteen prototypes developed by Jens Hansen (owner and namesake of the company) for Peter Jackson back when the movies were in pre-production. Obviously, as the ring plays such an important part in the books and movies, it had to be just right, and as a result took many tries to get the thing perfect (I wonder how many 'One Ring' prototypes Sauron tossed back into Mt. Doom before getting one right). 

Once a design was selected, Jens Hansen and co. developed over one hundred variations of the ring. Some were small, for hobbit sized fingers. Some were large, for Sauron sized gauntlets. Some were magnetic, to stick to the ground rather than bouncing away. The largest was almost a foot across, a heavy solid metal plated with gold to use in perspective shots and show reflections of characters on its surface.

With all that work, it's hard to believe the company did anything other than make One Ring knockoffs, but it was and still is a manufacturer of top quality rings and jewellery  Following the Lord of the Rings themes, they developed rings similar to those shown in the films, such as rings for Sir Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen (Gandalf and Aragorn), but they also had a wide range of other rings and necklaces manufactured right in the shop behind the counter

We then left Nelson and drove a few hours, reaching Christchurch in rush hour traffic. We moved inch by inch through the city and made it eventually to a Holiday Park right smack in the middle of the city. It was loud and smelly, but luckily we were able to arrange an Edoras pick-up the following morning, and the owners of the Holiday Park let us keep our campervan in their parking lot all day while we were on the tour, so it worked out okay. The planes, trains and automobile noises nearby did suck to try and sleep through though, a van is not the most soundproof of rooms.