After nearly eight months of living in New Zealand, it's about time I began visiting filming locations from the movie that put this small country on the map. Plus, Natalie would be most upset if I didn't at least make an effort to see hobbitland on her Tolkien-fan behalf. Last weekend, while the weather was still calm and mild, we took a wee day drive out of town toward Arthur's Pass to hopefully see snow (my most recent obsession). On the way we stopped at the place Peter Jackson used for numerous fight scenes in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
What a fun playground! All along a rolling hillside limestone rocks of various magnitudes protruded from the Earth, providing endless nooks and crannies to explore. It was a rather stunning sight, a field of massive rocks in the middle of nowhere. But that's New Zealand for you. We got ambitious and climbed to the top of the hillside, thoroughly winding ourselves in the process; the hill was deceptively steep! Needless to say it was cool to see one of the locations and try to guess how the production team organized themselves. This then sparked a need for us to watch The Lord of the Rings in hopes of catching a glimpse or two of the rocky terrain. But alas, we forgot how arduous a task it is to watch those films--my how they go on forever before getting anywhere--and quit watching after an hour into The Fellowship of the Ring.
