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!!