Lord of the Rings Road Trip to Glenorchy

We were up before the sun, and boy was it hard to get motivated when it was so dark outside. We got up and headed away from Henry Creek Campsite back towards Te Anau. We drove through the village as the sun was beginning to rise.

Just outside of Te Anau were some filming locations for Lord of the Rings. It was foggy this morning, but we still made our way to the different places on the map. The DOC website actually has some useful information and coordinates to help find the exact places. Our first stop was a filming location for the Anduin River (Waiau River in real life). The viewpoint was the opening aerial shot of The Fellowship of the Ring showing the forested banks of the Anduin River. Again, the fog impactes our ability to see the mountains and forest, but the river and it's banks. We also drove around for a bit to find a spot marked as Boulder Reach on Google maps, but it was quite hard to find and was just a different view of the Anduin River spot.

Along the way to the Anduin River spot we passed a filming location for the Dead Marshes (Kepler Mire) where Gollum guides Frodo and Sam through the swamp, saving Frodo as he falls under spell of the dead that seem to float within it. This was fenced off as it's in farmland, but we saw the trees and could imagine the swampy area beyond the fence. We drove past it on our way out, but still couldn't see a way past the fence. We stopped back in Te Anau for gas and to have breakfast before setting off towards Glenorchy.

About 45 minutes into the drive, we turned off and drove on a gravel road along Mavora Lake. We visited three different places here. The first one was Nen Hithoel (North Mavora Lake) where the Fellowship moor at the side of the lake at the end of their journey down the Anduin. Not far from the mooring location into the forest is where the hobbits hide from the Uruk-hai. I had fun trying to find this exact spot, but I definitely need to watch the movie again and familiarize myself. The last spot was the Silverlode and Anduin rivers (Mararoa River swing bridge at South Mavora Lake). The Fellowship left Lothlórien at this location. The swing bridge is the only one we've come across so far on our walks around New Zealand. I enjoyed walking across the bouncy bridge and looking out across the water towards the mountains. The water was also clear enough to see the fluffy green plants on the riverbed.

Before getting back on the highway, we had one more location after we left the lake. The Fangorn Forest edge of the Mavora Lakes: Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli follow Merry and Pippin's trail from the mound of burnt orc bodies left by Eomer's Riders of Rohan. This spot wasn't as obvious as the others, but there were some human trails through the long grass and we followed the coordinates to a small patch of forest. Again, I'm sure this spot would look more familiar if I'd seen the movie more recently.

We left the Mavora Lake region and carried on towards Queenstown and Glenorchy north of it. This next part of the drive was much longer and took about 3 hours to reach the next spot...but it came with a bit of drama. We passed painlessly through busy Queenstown and up through the quiet town of Glenorchy.

Shortly after Glenorchy, we turned off to make our way further north to Isengard (Dan's Paddock) where Gandalf rides up to Isengard in Nan Curunír. We were behind a 4WD Toyota which was going surprisingly slow considering the type of vehicle it was. Every now and again we had to cross small fords, but they weren't deep or too rocky for our low clearance minivan. It was helpful to have that guy in front of us though to know how deep the water was. Eventually, we came to a ford that we just couldn't pass safely. Not wanting to chance our luck with the muddy sides we (I begrudgingly) started to walk the 2.5 km to the coordinates. When we got there, I could picture the scene that was described as taking place here, and while I wasn't happy about walking when we were pressed for time, I was glad to see Isengard. It also ended up being a good decision not to try and cross the ford. When we for back, that Toyota from earlier, was hauling a blue car out that was small, but had more clearance than us. They had to get towed all the way back to Glenorchy because they flooded the engine and the car was fucked. Better be safe than sorry, even if it did cost us time and a 5k walk.

We stopped twice more on the way back towards Glenorchy. Once at a location used for Lothlorien in the forest and another that was the an Isengard Lookout with a good view towards where Isengard would have been in the distance. We also saw that Toyota hauling the little blue car back along the road after the stop at Lothlorien.

We drove back down past Glenorchy after the three locations almost all the way back to Queenstown. But, before we got back to Queenstown, we stopped for two Ithilien locations. The Ithilien camp (Twelve Mile Delta) where Frodo, Sam and Gollum watch the battle between Faramir's Rangers of Gondor and the men (and Oliphaunts) of Harad. Sam and Gollum discuss coney cookery and I couldn't help but recreate some of the iconic lines "Poh-Tay-Toes" or "Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew". Shame we didn't have any Poh-Tay-Toes with us! Both the scenes were easy to picture and I'm pretty sure I got almost the exact picture to match the scene with the oliphants.

After all of the Lord of the Rings excitement, we drove through Queenstown and to the Kawarau Suspension Bridge where we were camping for the night. The camp spot is the parking lot for the bungee company that runs bungee jumping off of the bridge. Allan finally caved and we rented Lord of the Rings Fellowship of the Ring to start watching. We've seen so many spots the last week or so, and a couple more planned for tomorrow, we couldn't resist the urge to start watching. We'd also started listening to the audio book on Spotify narrated by Andy Serkis, so it's LOTR galore!Læs mere