Lord of the Rings Day - Jan 4

From Milford Sound, we spent the day driving to Queenstown - a fairly lengthy drive. But we got away just after 9am from Milford, and made good time on the road. We had made all our stops on the drive in, so boogied out much quicker!

Once in Queenstown, we headed to the local self drive tour on a nearby lookout point. Several 'miscellaneous' scenes were filmed in this area. It was close to the base in Queenstown, and had a bit of variety within a short area. It was on private land - so you paid your entrance fee to their land ($20 was quite reasonable actually), where they now have lots of animals roaming around. It was quite interesting to see LOTR landscapes with deer, pigs, buffalo, yaks, goats, sheep, alpaca and more roaming around!

Also on the property was a movie set for a Disney film from the 1980's 'The Rescue' (photo at left).

From the LOTR movies we have:

Kyle and Audrey walking across the scene where the Rohirrim refugees flee Edoras. Mike managed to find a similar shot from the movie - note the season is different, and we have walked further around the pond. It is quite interesting how perspective can make the scale quite different!

Michael posed on the cliff face that Aragorn was dragged over (notice the grass below which replaces the special effects of the river in the movie :-). The comic at left has actual lines from the movie - all the more humourous having seen the landscape. The goat on the cliff above is the same rock from another angle actually.

The hillside where Legolas did his amazing jump onto his horse before battle. Bit different angle from the movie scene at right, and different lighting and season - but the same spot.

Finally, a picturesque scene, which was just a nice view - but it may very well have been in one of the movies :-)

And so while most tourists visit Queenstown as the adventure/ extreme sport capital of New Zealand (and perhaps even the world), the Montgomery's spent their visit retracing the steps of the Orcs and the Hobbits :-) And we thoroughly enjoyed it!