New Zealand (Day 2)

Today we visited the Pelanor Fields.  The primary problem was that it was a drizzly, damp day, thus I refused to risk my camera even for such an area as Pelanor Fields.  Lucky my mother has a rather less expensive and slightly more waterproof camera and obligingly took pictures of the fields and of us.  Doing stuff.  :)

To see the fields we first had to drive from Methven to Twizel (pronounced twy zel), which is about two and a half hours' drive.  I must say that the scenery along the way is very much like British Columbia (which we visited this past summer).  Plains followed by mountains followed by plains and then more mountains.  Throw in the occasional moutain lake and you have New Zealand and BC.  We stopped at a mountain lake for a stretch and a few pictures.  The frustrating thing about wide angle lenses is that people get in your pictures very easily.  I had to wait for a while before being able to take my pictures.

Anyways.  Now for the good bit.  Pelanor Fields.  There actually wasn't all that much to see; all it is is a large flat field with some mountains behind them.  We did get to see how some of them were used as the backdrop for certain parts, but because the Pelanor Fields in the movie have the cliffs and crags of Minas Tirith on one end and the mountains bordering Mordor on the other, those mountains were cut in from other parts of New Zealand.  However, we did get to have a bit of a behind the scenes explanation for how it all was filmed; our driver had been one of the drivers employed to transport the massive numbers of extras they had on set and he got to watch it all being filmed.  He explained how all the horses were used, how freakishly difficult it was to get various shots.  The scene of Theodin's rousing speech before the charge, where he clanks all the spears with his sword, took two days.  All because the actor was left handed and had a hard time hold the sword in his right while banging it against spears.  Then the scene where Faramir and his company ride out to take Osgiliath took two or three days as well; getting the horses to stand in a line like that was nowhere near as easy as it looked.

We drove up to the rise where the Rohirrem charged from, and there our guide pulled out some swords, flags, and helmets, and let us all stand in a line and shout "DEATH!" just like in the movie while he took a picture.  Unfortunately there were no spears but it still worked as well as could be expected.  Then we drove back down to the fields and he accelerated the van along the road which the camera cars used to the speed at which the cavalry charge would have been.  It didn't take much visualizing to imagine the Rohan cavalry racing across the plains beside us.  Then we stopped and reenacted Eowyn's duel with the Witch King of Angmar; Jordan played the role of the Witch King and Abigail played Eowyn.  Patrick, somewhat obviously, was Merry and Charlotte, my dad, and I were orcs.  An interesting note about the orcs: all the weapons the orcs had (the extras, that is) were plastic.  Same with all the armour.  So us three orcs got rubbery heads to put on and plastic swords, Patrick and Abigail got appropriately coloured cloaks and real swords, and Jordan got a rubber form of the Witch King's mask, a black cloack and the Witch King's sword (which was a pretty sweet sword).  The guide then moved us around as the scene went, with my mother taking pictures of all of us.  I have newfound respect for those extras who played the roles of orcs...you can't see a thing in that mask.  I can't imagine trying to fight a battle in it (which is pretty much what they did as the film crew filmed it).

After we were done with that we headed back to Twizel and drove the remaining hour and a half to Wanaka, where we checked into a bed and breakfast place with a special hobbit room, complete with slightly oversized beds (to make us feel small) and a round door.

As a side note, I know this is up late, and that I haven't even started today's entry, but it's really late and I do need sleep (remember, my spirit animal is the koala.  I need at least twenty hours of sleep each day.  I've only got eight so far today and there's just an hour left).  Tomorrow we don't actually have a tour anywhere so hopefully, in between my reading (Calvin's Institutes is especially hard to read when in New Zealand), I'll get today's post up.

Here are the pictures, with a few annotations.  They are all taken by my mother, with the exception of the group shot. Enjoy.



Pelenor Fields  The road is the track the camera car ran on.



That small mountain in the center is direction behind Gandalf as he and Pippin ride into Gondor, coming from Rohan.  Only it has snow on it.

DEATH!



This is up on the ridge the Rohirrem charge from, overlooking Pelanor Fields.



Merry to the rescue



That raindrop chose a very inconvenient location, don't you think?