Warning: the following entry might make non-LOTR fans yawn, roll their eyes, or frantically click on any pop-up window hoping to see anything else besides hobbits, dwarves, and elves. Continue at your own risk!!
Those of you who know me might know that NZ holds a special place in my heart for a few reasons.
1) All things Finn (i.e. Crowded House, Finn Brothers, and Neil Finn as a solo artist). It was great to hear his music on NZ radio-- you rarely hear anything except ´Don´t Dream it´s Over´ on Bay Area radio anymore! (but that's a different blog)
2)The fact that the Lord of the Rings movies was filmed there and the scenery used in the movie was spectacular.
So, of course, one of my ´must do´ items in NZ would be to take an LOTR tour, right? Even though the films are long over, there still seems to be ´Ring Fever´ alive and well in many parts of NZ...for example, there are many companies that do tours or safaris of the filming sites. What usually happens is that they take you to various filming sites and tell you the stories behind the filming. Maybe if you are lucky, you meet someone that was an extra in the films. We decided to take a half day ´Glenorchy´ tour near Queenstown with Nomad Safaris. We were picked up in a huge green 4x4 appropriately named ´Bilbo´. Ian, our tour guide told us stories that he had heard from his friends that worked as extras. Apparently, most of these guys and gals had a great time working all night as extras as Rohan refugees or bloodthirsty Orcs and then stumbling into work the next morning bleary-eyed and unable to give any juicy details as they had signed some pretty strict confidentiality rules.
As we drove to some of the different filming sites, he told us about how the film makers had combined various locations to make the magic of Middle Earth happen.... BTW, all the photos on the left are our own photos and the ones on the right belong to Peter Jackson and co.
Lothlorien, the Elven Kingdom, was actually filmed in the forests in Glenorchy, an old gold mining town near Queenstown. We took a short walk from the road to the interior of the forest, where we were surrounded by tall trees with sunlight filtering through the canopy. It was very easy to believe that you might run into elven guardians holding arrows on you telling you that you breathe so loud that they could shoot you in the dark or lovely elven women named Arwen or Galadriel wearing long flowing gowns among these ancient trees and groves. Of course, none of the actual structures or buildings were there, as they had all been computer generated or taken apart when filming was over.
We then went to the location where Sam, Frodo, and Gollum spot the Óliphaunts´and are subsequently taken prisoner by Faramir (The Two Towers).
The area is called Twelve Mile Delta and is an extremely popular camping and boating site. To get there, we actually had to drive across several streams and climb up a small hill.
Another funny story was how Ian would point to a rock and say, "that's the rock they hid behind for the scene where......To be perfectly honest, it looked like any other rock! But I guess if you work for a Lord of the Rings associated tourism job, you better know what you are talking about!!
He also said that many scenes were blended- that the first part of the scene would be set somewhere, and the background of the scene would be computer generated in....something like the scene where the Dead Marshes are filmed.
Finally, we ended the tour with a cup of tea and cookies for elevenses..... something that no self-respecting hobbit, dwarf, elf, or Dark Lord could refuse!!
-Smruti
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