New Zealand Travel Diary Part V

So, sleeping over at the Deer Flats on the Milford Road. The area in general had apparently been used to portray Fangorn Forest in the Lord Of The Rings, and the trees sure looked very Fangorn-ish to us. There was a little pond, which turned out to be a mirror pond, as you can see. Very very nice. I loved these trees, they reminded me of the Chinese cartoons we used to watch growing up on telly, there was that kind of intricacy to them.

From Te Anau we headed east towards Queenstown, on the shores of gorgeous Lake Wakatipu. There are a lot of Lord Of The Rings locations in this region, but most of them are not ‘whole’, in the sense that they would have been combined with landscape from elsewhere to make up the scene, making it difficult to recognize any given spot. So, I’ve seen what must have been either the White Mountains (Ered Nimrais) or the Mountains of Shadow (Ephel Duath), which combined with some fields near Twizel make up the location used for the battle on the Pelennor Fields. Anyway, no more LOTR talk…for now.

The drive around the lake was very nice, the road being windy and lovely. Queenstown itself is buzzing – we took a walk down through city centre and had lunch in a great café. There are lots of things to do in Queenstown, most of them related to some form of extreme (or not) sport. After a couple of hours, we drove off again and went to Arrowtown, a lovely village higher up in the mountains, founded during the gold rush in I-can’t-remember-when. The Arrow River formed part of the location for the Ford of Bruinen, and a little further down the river was the site of the Gladden Fields, where the orcs attacked Isildur (it’s in The Two Towers). We saw both sites, but for the Ford of Bruinen only the river itself was used in the movie, the banks you see are from Skipper’s Canyon, not far from Arrowtown, where we did not go.

For once, we went out for dinner and found a really great restaurant called The Stables, with very good wine and food. It had a great table under yet another Party Tree wanna-be. Okay, so that probably requires an explanation. At the beginning of The Fellowship Of The Ring, Bilbo has a huge birthday party for when he turns 111. The main table is situated under a big tree, henceforth known as the Party Tree. In Hagley Park in Christchurch there is a tree which would have made an awesome Party Tree. I have no idea where the real Party Tree is that was used in the movie.

All in all, Arrowtown was great, and the camp site we found has to be the most beautiful and up-to-date I have ever seen. Spacious and clean and with more facilities than you could shake a stick at.

From there, we headed east towards Wanaka. To get there we had to choose between two routes. One was very scenic, and the other passed by an LOTR location. We chose the scenic route, and it was indeed very beautiful. Wanaka, on the other hand, was very windy. We parked by the lake and chilled out for a few hours before heading off again. I didn’t ever get tired of seeing beautiful lakes surrounded by snowy peaks, but I think I did get a bit used to it. At any rate, Lake Wanaka is not a match for Tekapo or Pukaki for beauty – it’s just very nice.

Speaking of Pukaki, we spent the night at the Mount Cook Lookout at the southern end of the lake, in the parking lot by the small visitor’s centre. Yet another spectacular sunset and what a view in the morning. The same thing happened as the first time we visited Pukaki – Aoraki Mount Cook was partially covered by cloud when we arrived, proceeded to become completely clear after a few hours, and then stayed that way. This prompted a change to our plans – we had to be heading back to Christchurch, but it was just too good an opportunity to miss out on, going up to Mount Cook Village for a closer look at the mountain, on a day of clear blue skies. Elisa and Stefano have tried it before, coming to the lake in fine weather and ending up in the rain once they got to Mount Cook Village. Not this time. We stopped by the Edmund Hillary Alpine Center for an hour or two and then had to go back – there was still roughly 5 hours to drive before Christchurch and home. But oh, it was worth it!

It felt weird being back in Christchurch, the camper had so quickly become home. It was like we’d been gone for a lot longer than just 9 days. But then again, we did see an awful lot of places, and all of them awesomely gorgeous. And on that note, I’ll stop here, stay tuned for Part VI, in which we go on a scenic train journey across the South Island…