Day 16. Queenstown LOTR day tour.
Today the plan for the day was for another Lord of the Rings
tour to go on. There are other tours within this area too that end up at remote
locations. This one actually takes you out to the more local ones and do
explain a little about the locations. The day I was chilly and I had to head
back upstairs for a jumper as my jacket was not warm enough for the weather. I
nearly went back for my trousers then put my foot down as i would forever be
going up and down for clothes. I decided to wait and was looking for a vehicle
splashing its logo all over the place. I did in fact not see a colourful van,
but a non descript one that was my ride. I will explain why later.
Today there was only two of us on the tour and it was myself
and a German girl called Anna. Her English was not that great, but we all
understood each other, although the kiwi lady did at times not understand what
I was actually saying. The first scene that was part of the movie was the Rydges
hotel that had been used for shooting of the movie, which was beds and makeup.
After we passed this place we were onto the first shot where the olyphants had
been sighted by the Hobbits. This was an area called 12 mile plains. Several
other shots had been taken especially of the Gondor rangers who were shooting
the people with arrows and where the Hobbits were cooking not far away either.
One of the pictures in the location guidebook we were shown the Gondor rangers
marching. This area had been mined for gold and the large rocks had been thrown
around after getting into the Sluicing machine. The area for the movie was
called Ithilien.
We next headed towards Glenorchy where the mountain area
called Paradise was located. We did not head into the town as it would have
taken too long to get there, but this was another area to visit in the search
for LOTR locations. We did turn around and head back towards town where other
locations were pointed out near Queenstown like Deer Park Height, where we were
not allowed to go. The owner closed it off to people for some unknown reason.
Near the airport is where some of the scenes were shot of like Gondor with the
red glow of Mordor. Another was an altered Queenstown where the pirates were
going up the river until boarded with the ghost army.
After lunch, which was really nice, we headed to another set
of shots. We had actually gotten to lunch around 40 mins late and we watched
some of the easter eggs on the Samsung ipad thing. The scene we went to was of
the river at the Pillars of the kings on the driveway to a winery with an owner
who has a sense of humour called the Chad Farm. The closer shots of the people
were shot in the Wellington area, but this one was where we could see the huge
statues of two kings. Around the corner is actually where they do the bungy
jumping. After this location, we actually head towards the last locations of
the day.
We headed towards Arrowtown, which is famous in its own
right as it had been around for the gold mining, so it was a historic town.
Several scenes were shot within this town basically around the corner from each
other. There is another town I would like to see, but Mace town is actually a
slow 6 – 8 hour drive crossing many streams on the way. They do have a
reconstructed Chinese settlement and I was also told they have a large
selections of pies in the bakery. I will have to look into this one. The two
scenes we went to were The Gladden fields where Isildur after the battle for
the ring was attacked by orcs and he escaped into the water where the ring fell
off his finger and he was shot by arrows. This was shot in winter so would have
been pretty cold. The next was where Arwen with Frodo called forth a flood to
wipe out the Dark riders trying to claim the Hobbit and the ring. This is
called the Ford of Bruinen.
On our way back to the town of Queenstown, it was explained
that the tour I was on tells the customers more about the scenes as other
groups do not although they do have their place. Like some drive out to one
little location an hour drive away stay for several minutes and drive back. I
do like the tours anyway especially when they have a small group. Before we
headed back there was another stop to play with the various weaponry from the
movies. The reason for not having signage on the vehicles was that insurance
said they couldn’t as they carried replicas of swords etc. Still it was fun and after our stop then we
were allowed to head back to our hostels after a day well spent. I did end up
having an icecream on the lake front and then dinner. Tomorrow I will be
heading to Arrowtown to sample pies, a cemetery and the local museum. Dont know
about gold panning though as all i would
see is rock, rock and another rock.
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