Throughout our South Island adventure, we enjoyed seeing many locations from The Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit trilogies. Here are some of the highlights...
- Cheers!
Mount Sunday
Mount Sunday was home to Edoras, the capital of Rohan. It took the LOTR production crew eight months to build the Golden Hall & surrounding buildings on top of these rocky cliffs in the Rangitata River Valley near Mt Potts Station. Then after filming, all of the buildings were removed & the site was returned to its natural state. Which is just how we found it. Fresh snow had just fallen on the surrounding mountains when we visited in January! Very unusual for summer in New Zealand. It was a beautiful day at an incredible site.
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| 3 hrs later we viewed Mt Sunday (bottom left) in the distance |
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| Carrying our heavy weapons made the hike to the top a bit more rigorous |
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| Ben enjoys an epic view of the Riddermark... |
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| ...and Helms Deep in the distance |
The Mavora Lakes
I led the whole family on this detour between Queenstown & Dunedin to the beautiful
Mavora Lakes, a popular area for camping, trout fishing & kayaking. Several scenes from
The Fellowship of the Ring pertaining to the breaking of the fellowship were filmed in this area, as well. Most notably, Frodo & Sam cross to the eastern shore on their journey to Mordor from this spot on North Mavora Lake...
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| I couldn't resist the temptation to take a dip in this icy-cold lake ; ) |
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I have great respect for Sean Astin (Sam),
because that water was cold as! |
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| The edge of Fangorn Forest was also filmed just south of the Mavora Lakes |
Arrowtown
While we were in Arrowtown, we found two film locations from The Fellowship of the Ring: "The Fords of Bruinin" pictured above...
and "The Gladden Fields" pictured below...
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| Isildur loses the ring |
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| Deagol & Smeagol find the ring |
Glenorchy & Paradise
While in Queenstown, Ellie, Mimi, Ben & I took a half-day tour of
LOTR locations with
Nomad Safaris. We travelled to
Glenorchy & Paradise Valley at the north end of Lake Wakatipu...
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| The Glenorchy Boat Shed |
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| Geeks on the dock at the Glenorchy Boat Shed |
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| Beorn's House from The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug |
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| Saruman sends out his army from Isengard |
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| Isengard |
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| The Fellowship enters Lothlorien |
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| Hot drinks in Lothlorien. Mmmm. Good Milo! |
Twelve Mile Delta
Our Nomad tour also stopped at this location, just twelve miles outside of Queenstown. Two scenes from The Two Towers were filmed here...
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| Gollum brings "a brace of coneys" to the hobbits |
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| Frodo & Sam peer over the ridge to see these Oliphants for the first time |
The Pelorus River
Finally, the first location we found on the South Island was here at the Pelorus River Bridge, between Picton & Nelson. In The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, this location is featured in the river escape sequence that loosely depicts the "Barrels Out of Bond" chapter from the book. One of our favorite parts from both the book & the movie...
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| Production photo from The Hobbit |
"Thank you, Nancy!" for being such a great sport, putting up with all of these crazy expeditions.
You're welcome, Cris! We sure put on a lot of extra km's getting to all those LOTR sites, but it was always worth it. We saw the amazing beauty of the South Island that we wouldn't have seen had we not been on those crazy quests. So "Thank You" for being our fearless leader who led us to New Zealand in the first place!!
ReplyDeletePlease continue to check out every single one of these amazing, beautiful places. Get it all out of your system...then come HOME! We miss you guys. Looks like you are having a blast although I don't understand much of what you are saying. Maybe I will need to watch the LOTR movies before you get back so we can talk!
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, Megan! I'll keep sight-seeing. You watch the movies & read the books, then we'll talk. Thanks for checking out the blog!
DeleteRiveting...love all the sight seeing and the sights and tales of the most famoustest of hobbitses...and now we will be telling tales of YOU!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Brother! We are certainly having a lot of fun & will always have these shared experiences going forward as a family...
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