New Zealand (Day 1)

Today was the first of several tours of Lord of the Rings locations, specifically, Edoras.  The location at which Edoras was filmed was the most remote and most expensive location in the whole trilogy.  It's certainly easy to see why, as it is about an hour away from the nearest town, that being Methven, and it is a rough 4WD trip to the location.  Add to that the fact that it is located between two mountain ridges, and thus has screaming winds almost constantly, and you have one awful place for filming.

Anyways, the day was pretty straightforwards, really.  We got picked up from Methven at 10:30 in the morning, drive ten minutes out to another village, the name of which escapes my memory, to pick up another two people and also have a half-hour break (our guide and one person had come from Christchurch, which is an hour and a half away from Methven).  It was at this point that I took my required fence-post picture; my mom likes to say I'm more interested in the rocks and the fence-posts than I am in the surrounding scenery (which is generally amazing).

Okay so maybe I cheated a little on the requirements and took in some of the scenery as well.  So sue me.

Moving along in the tour, we got to a nice vantage point to see what we had come to see.  The mother of all fence-posts!  Obviously I'm joking.  Really it was a rocky (cough cough) hill upon which stood the golden hills of Edoras.  After taking a few pictures from such a distance that the hill is quite possibly too far away to make for a reasonable photograph, we piled back in to make the final leg of the journey.

Try to spot where Edoras was built.  (Hint: look near the centre)

We did make a brief stop along the way to that remote hillock to pick up some items which will remain undisclosed for the moment (oooh, suspense!).  After picking our way through some particularly bumpy "roads" in a 4WD vehicle (with six wheels...) that seemed to have had its suspension adjusted to suit the ancient/medieval setting of the Lord of the Rings, we got to the base area where the filming crew and set up its base of operations.  Here our guide pulled out said undisclosed items, and we took some pictures with such undisclosed items in certain not-yet-mentioned positions as seemed appropriate.  Yes yes, I know you've probably scrolled down already to see the pictures and ruin my suspense.  Shows what appreciation there is in the world today for writing.  It's interesting considering I'm writing about one of the most epic pieces of literature ever written.

After we'd had our fun with those pictures we drove up the hill of Edoras as far as the truck could go, and walked the rest of the way, carefully dodging the landmines cowpies that were scattered all across the hill.  When we got to the top the guide more or less walked us through a few of the scenes, and pointed out two errors in the film that take place in Edoras.  He also explained that the scene where the flag rips off what thanks to serendipity; a camera happened to be rolling when it tore off due to the massive amounts of wind that race through the area, as previously mentioned.  They then realized that it was pure gold and added it in to the point where Gandalf and his crew ride in (I assume, as those two shots were probably filmed at different times).  We then got to hold a Rohirrim flag (very carefully, as there was a "gentle breeze" during our visit), take pictures of it, and basically climb all over the rock.  The view was amazing, yet familiar.  I wonder why....

This landscape here, our guide explained, was shown in the longest landscape cut in the movie, just after Aragorn recovers from his tumble off the cliff.  The camera sweeps across from beyond the right side of this picture (where Aragorn was sitting on his horse), over that ridge and across that valley.  Just to the right of that small cluster of trees on the left is a gap in the mountains, in which they placed Helm's Deep in that scenic shot.

And there you have it.  Edoras.  Following are some other pictures I took during the day.  They're more or less in chronological order.