Day 7 - May 30, 2008: Lord of the Rings tour, Glenorchy and around Lake Wakatipu
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We've been having good luck with the weather. We spent our morning in Queenstown walking by Lake Wakatipu.
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This picture was taken by a lady who migrated here (to Cromwell, to be exact) from Singapore many years ago.
She said that behind the tourist-friendly facade, New Zealand is plagued by problems with unemployment, corruption, crime and racism.
She could hardly believe that we were travelling around the country in winter.
When we told her about our plans to drive to Te Anau, she warned us about the black ice on the road and strongly
suggested we take the coach instead. Before we could ask her how that would be safer, she walked away.
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After lunch, we waited for our ride for the Lord of the Rings tour. The one we were going on was conducted by
Nomad Safaris, but there are many other companies running tours around the South Island.
From their URLs, you can guess that some of them have been set up after the release of the movies, while some of the others seem to be
pre-existing tour companies branching out into movie scene tours.
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The 4WD came on time, but there was some miscommunication with regards to the child safety seat (at first they didn't bring one,
then one was delivered very promptly but it was too small). In the end, we just took the one from our rental car and used that.
No worries. Our driver and guide for the day was Caroline, a nice lady originally from England.
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We only made stops where there were LOTR scenes, so we shot most of the pictures through the truck window.
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Lake Wakatipu was within sight throughout most of our journey for the afternoon.
What I had thought was a pretty little lake beside Queenstown was in fact the longest and third largest lake in New Zealand.
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Over 22,000 people were involved in the making of the LOTR movies.
Some of them, like Caroline, are now employed as tour guides because of their knowledge.
Other movies shot (partly or fully) in New Zealand include The Last Samurai, 300, King Kong, and the Narnia movies.
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Long and big as it is, Lake Wakatipu has only three islands on it. Caroline says she often runs into Kiwi actor
Sam Neill tramping on one of these islands in the summer.
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New Zealand gets a lot of energy from hydroelectricity, and the South Island supplies around 80% of North Island's
hydroelectric power.
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All the sheep we saw throughout our trip in New Zealand were farm animals kept within fenced areas...
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... except for these two. They stopped for a quick photo before continuing their bold escape.
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This was maybe our second or third stop for the day.
See Ming exclaimed "I know! This was where Frodo did something," which I thought was a very good guess but Caroline just kept
a straight face and said "Uh, no actually."
This was Lothlorien, home of the Elves.
Thousands of painted leaves were added to the scene to achieve a golden look more in line with the description from the books,
but the crew cleaned up every single one of the leaves after shooting.
This was also where Boromir (Sean Bean) died. Apparently, a prop crossbow bolt was shot at him for real and was supposed to hit a
wooden plate on his chest, but the marksman missed and it punctured his skin, so his scream in the movie was one of genuine pain.
Here's another piece of trivia about Sean Bean. Some of the locations chosen by Peter Jackson were so remote that the only access
was by helicopter. Bean was so terrified by the experience that he refused to be involved in further scenes that required helicopter
air-lifting.
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Caroline then gave the disclaimer that we were not at the exact spot of the scene. Access to the actual spot was difficult, but it was very
close by and looked very similar to where we were. We laughed and said that since we weren't die-hard fans of the books and movies, we'd let
her off this time. She said that she'd taken some really hardcore LOTR fans with her and so far, nobody had complained. One group even brought
LOTR figurines with them and laid them out to take pictures at each location.
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The ride was actually quite smooth throughout the tour.
We were mostly on a dirt road late in the afternoon and we crossed a few small creeks but the water levels were very low,
so the Land Rover barely needed to slow down. Little Max enjoyed the splashes of water.
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This was the furthest point of the tour, where we had some tea and biscuits before turning back towards Queenstown.
It was a desolate-looking place covered with matagauri trees. It definitely looked perfect as a fantasy movie location.
We forgot where this was supposed to be, so if anyone knows, let us know.
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Traditionally, the Maoris use the thorns from the matagauri tree to carve out their tattoos.
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This riverbed was where the bad guy army gathered before one of the big battles.
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One last stop before we get back to town. Behind us was a camping site that was supposed to be Isengard
(but without the computer-generated images, it was just a bunch of bushes). It was a great spot for taking pictures of
Wakatipu and the Remarkables though.
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Oh ya, this was also where Frodo met Tom Bombadil.
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I'm just kidding, but I really thought the gap in the trees here looked scary.
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We got back to Queenstown in time for dinner. See Ming had met a Thai girl yesterday who said her
favourite Thai restaurant in Queenstown (and there are quite a few) was the Golden Elephant,
so that's where we had dinner. The fried blue cod in Thai sauce was delicious.
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While in the North Island, we tried two beers - Rheineck (which was very good) and XXXX Export Gold (horrible).
Tonight, I picked up two more local beers to try - Speight's Old Dark 5-malt ale and Monteith's Celtic Red ale.
Both taste good. I personally like the dark better, but I only drink when I travel, so make of that what you will.
While I was at the liquor store, I picked up some bottled mineral water for the next few days.
The girl at the counter said that I should also try the water from the tap, which she says is very good.
She says she usually throws out the water from the bottles and fills it from the tap. Over the next few days,
I drank tap water on a few occasions but kept my wife and baby on the bottled stuff. Nothing bad happened.
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Some of the other LOTR tours:
Trails of Middle Earth - For the hardcore LOTR fans. You get to wave swords.
Trilogy Trail - LOTR tours by air.
Deer Park Safaris - You get to see film locations as well as deer.
Lord of the Rings Tours at Twizel - Starts from Twizel instead of Queenstown.
