Queenstown With Bryan

Feb23 started with an early ferry ride from Stewart Island to Bluff and a long drive to Queenstown to pickup my son, Bryan, at the airport! He had just flown in from California and we were looking forward to sharing NZ with him. We spent some time walking around in downtown QT on a very nice warm summer day. Bryan appreciated the lively waterfront area, with its many cafes, restaurants and stores. He also like the ice cream!

The next day was all about the “Lord Of The Rings”. When my sons, Alan & Bryan were growing up, we read the books as a family. When the movies were being made, my sister, Louise, was a VP at New Line Cinema while they were filming. She sent us all the LOTR swag – hats, t-shirts, Sting (Frodo’s sword) and life sized cardboard cutouts of Gandalf, Legolas, etc. The family went to each movie as it came out and when the Oscar award was in my sister’s home, we went down and took pics holding it. So LOTR is big for us.

This next bit is going to be pretty geeky if you are not into LOTR!

We had a morning tour where we saw filming sites south and east of QT. The guide did a great job of giving some background about each location and showing screen-shots from the movie, pointing out hills, rivers, trees, etc that we could see in the photo and at our location. It was fun hearing some of the stories about the making of the movies and sharing it with other LOTR fans.

Here, the guide is explaining the LOTR shot were the black riders were swept away in the river, and how it was filmed at this location.

The guide is showing a movie screen-shot of Ishuldir riding his horse down this road before being ambushed by orcs and losing the Ring Of Power.

This was used for the River Anduin, where the Fellowship was in boats leaving the elves and Lothlorien. Now it is used for rafting trips.

Bryan (left) and one of the other tour members posing like the statues at the Gate of Argonath, where the river enters Gondor.

In the afternoon, we went on another LOTR tour, showing different areas.

They had costumes to dress in and replica weapons from the movie. It was all a lot of fun!

The area in the foreground was used to film parts of Rohan and the hills in the background were used for many scenes. The signal fires from Gondor were on these peaks. Parts of the mountains around Mordor and the mountains near the mines of Moria were also filmed here.

More grand vistas used in filming.

The next morning was a free day and we took off to Lake Wanaka, a really pretty drive that took about an hour.

After a nice lunch, we drove out along the lake for some beautiful views. Bryan spent some time sketching landscapes while Peggy & I went for a hike.

We also spent some time at Puzzle World which had many optical illusions and a room where everything was at an angle so that water appeared to run up hill and a room people got smaller or larger depending on where they were in the room. It was fun!