[Nz2003] Wellington -> Turangi

[Edmund A. Hintz]

    Our first day in Wellington (actually Paraparaumu which is a bit
North of Wellington, but cheap) ended up being another down day due to
Sam's continuing ear problem; due to the pain we found yet another doctor
and got more information. He prescribed a different medication, but did
have some useful insight into the problem. While loading in the luggage
the previous evening I'd seen a helicopter which looked suspiciously like
the Schweizer 300CB which I've been training in, further investigation
uncovered that it was a Hughes 300. Apparently Hughes made them back in
the '70s as trainers for the 'Nam guys, and Schweizer bought them out in
the early '90s and changed a few things. But, for the most part, it's the
same machine, so I grabbed an hour of instruction since Sam was in no
condition to go anywhere. Paraparaumu is a beautiful place, with the
Tasman Sea on one side, and 5000ft peaks on the other. It would be a
great place to learn to fly; 8 minutes away from the airport at sea level
you're in 5000ft peaks. Back in Concord I have to fly for about an hour
to get to that sort of terrain. 'Twas good to get in a little practice,
looking forward to resuming lessons once we get home.

    Saturday we headed into Wellington proper, got a motel in the thick
of things, and hit several LOTR sites. Mt. Victoria is the location of
the "get off the road" scene, where the hobbits first encounter the
Nazgul. It was a bit difficult to find; I purchased a GPS a few hours
before we went, but I didn't really know how to use it yet-I could make
waypoints, but only at my location, didn't know how to edit a waypoint,
so I basically had to wander about and constantly check my location
against the target. I did finally find the spot, but it was too much of a
walk for Sam and Hunter, so I just took a photo. While wandering about I
ran into a couple of gals from the UK doing exactly the same thing with
the book and for the remainder of the day we kept seeing folks popping up
with it, seems that LOTR sightseeing is popular down here.

    After Mt. Victoria we headed North into the Upper Hutt area, and
Kaitoke Regional Park. They used a small but intensely scenic area for
Rivendell, and we spent a good amount of time there wandering about the
creeks, walking across the swingbridge, and having a general good time.
From there we headed to Harcourt Park, which was used for Isengard. The
scene where Gandalf rides up the path has a very recognizable tree, which
I found, having at that point figured out how to edit waypoints so my GPS
took me right to it. The road and the chains along the side were added by
the crew, and removed after the shot and the grass replanted, but you can
still make out the path where it happened. Also, the trees the Orcs took
down were filmed here, one of the background trees is easily
identifiable. The actual trees chopped were cut from a site about 100
miles away, trucked to the location, pieced back together, and put on a
hinge. So, they could be cut down multiple times on command, pretty cool.

    That evening we met up with the local unitarians for dinner, caught
the service the next morning, then headed North. On the way through
Wellington we saw the Embassy theater, which has a huge Gollum reaching
over the building for the Ring down in front, cool. Stopped for a bit at
Fernside, a manor house near Featherston, about 1hr North of Wellington.
This was the location for the scene where the fellowship leaves
Lothlorien; where Galadriel et. al. stand on the bridge and watch them
go. The bridge is there on a man-made pond, and was spruced up quite a
bit by the set designers-before and after photos are on their website.

http://www.fernside.co.nz/morelor.html

The house is now a high-class Bed and Breakfast; I checked into staying
there but the cost for 2 people is $1350NZD per 24 hours. They do pamper
you to the extreme, but that kind of money is like a weeks budget for us
on this trip so it wasn't meant to be. The site isn't public, but they
were kind enough to let us tramp on back and see it anyway, very nice
folk. The rest of the grounds about the place are also quite spectacular,
we took a lot of photos there.

    From there we continued on to Turangi, driving hard and arriving
around 7pm. On the way there was a pretty good storm blowing through, and
around the time of the sunset it started to thin out, and sky became a
fantastic orange. The entire landscape was tinted by the colors, and
little pockets of clear blue sky with white clouds poked through
providing contrast. And along with it were the snow-covered peaks of Mt.
Ruapehu, sometimes obscured in drifting cloud. The whole scene was too
spectacular to miss, so even though it was a long day and a hard drive,
we had to stop for the photos. A lot of action in one day, but well worth it.

http://www.hintz.org/photos/public/4-6/

https://photoviewer@www.hintz.org/photos/private/4-6-people/

Regards,

Ed Hintz
ed@hintz.org