Thar be gold in that thar river!

We woke up this morning to find that the Rental Car request we had submitted last night couldn't be fulfilled. In fact, nearly every Car Hire company in town was sold out!(What recession?) However, after some digging on both our parts, we got in touch with Budget (which, incidentally, does not live up to its name) and procured a white Toyota Corolla. Cameron drove and Dallas navigated on the left side of the road today! It wasn't 100% smooth, but we both did pretty well considering our tendency to be somewhat nervy drivers.

Our first destination was Arrowtown, a gold mining town which sprung up in the late nineteenth century. The Arrow River is (we hear!) the second largest gold-producing river in the world. Naturally, we had to give it a try - after stopping for crepes and coffees at Bon Jour!








Cameron found only pretty rocks, but Dallas found what we think is a tiny fleck of gold! Too small to take a picture of, though. After awhile, Cameron made a bee-shaped enemy and decided she needed to flee the scene, so we spent some time walking around downtown. Here are a couple shots of the town:




We grabbed some pies and headed out of Arrowntown and back up Deer Park Heights, which you might remember from yesterday's Lord of the Rings tour. We had intended to have a little photo shoot, but Dallas was not pleased with the lighting so we gave up. At least we got to visit with and feed a lot of awesome (if somewhat gluttonous) animals!


















Toward the end of our visit to Deer Park Heights, we made friends with some Donkeys. One of them loved us so much that he put himself in the way of our car and refused to let us back up and turn around! Dallas had to go out with the feed bucket and lure them all away while Cameron made a hasty but incredibly skillful 6-point-turn. :)




We finally pried ourselves away from the fuzzy guys and drove to the town of Glenorchy, and the drive was really beautiful! Glenorchy itself is super small but offers an alternate view of the lake.










We finally made it back to Queenstown, where Dallas took this lovely picture:


Bed time is here. Thanks for reading! We're riding horses tomorrow!

Adventures in Middle Earth

So today we had our Lord of the Rings tour! It was absolutely beautiful! It started with us driving up to this hill above Queenstown called Deer Park Heights. Basically, it's privately owned property that costs $20 NZD to drive around on. It's made up of several pastures containing deer, llamas, goats, bison, and donkeys, as well as pigs, chickens and ducks. Various feed dispensers are located along side the road where you can pay $1-$2 dollar coins to feed the animals, who are all quite tame and friendly. The land is owned by a 90-something-year-old man named Frank who makes money off of his animals, renting his property out for movies, and tourists touring it.

Here's a view of Queenstown from atop the hill.

And a llama. Because llamas are adorable.

Here's us in front of the fantastic view, holding a film still of the same view being used as the river where the corsair ships were sailing.

Another movie filmed here was called "The Rescue", and was a 1986 Disney film that featured a Korean prison. So, here's the remains of said prison:

So, for our first posed scene shot: The gorse bush Frodo, Sam, and Gollum hide under from the Nazgûl riding the fell beast.

And here is where the refugees of Rohan are walking around the lake on their way to Helm's Deep. We look much happier than them though.

We also pretended to be Legolas shooting at Wargs. The Wargs and weaponry will be added in post production. ;)

Legolas frolicked all over these hills!

(They flipped the scene for the movie to follow the Fellowship's left to right movement across the screen.)

Warg scene, where Aragorn is dragged by the warg off the cliff.

And here's a re-enactment of looking for Aragorn over the cliff, complete with dead orcs.

From the extended version of The Two Towers, a re-enactment of Eowyn bringing Aragorn some not-so-delicious stew.

After that, it was lunch time. Here's a couple photos from our drive out of the park:

During lunch we got to peruse copies of the movie scripts. Finding typos in the "Final Revision" amused us.

We then got to play with some movie replica weapons! Our guide said the entire lot was worth about $15,000 NZD.

The cloak is one of the cloaks worn by Sam in the movie...one of five, at least. Here is Cameron with Bilbo/Frodo's sword, Sting.

And here she is with Arwen's sword, Hadhafang:

Dallas wielding Legolas' elven long knives and Andúril!:

We then had a battle...

Cameron broke Dallas' sword. :(

But Dallas had a warranty on it! :D

(For those who don't know, Narsil was the sword broken when Isildur fought Sauron and took the ring, and Andúril is the same sword reforged.)

Here's Dallas as Gimli (sadly sans beard, unlike a true dwarf woman):

And Cameron modeling Arwen's Evenstar pendant:

We then played with the One Ring. Here's Cameron putting the ring on:

And here she is wearing the ring!

So of course Dallas had to try it too...

Amazing! The world started looking grey and swishy while we wore it though. Here's Dallas wearing the ring:

After we gave the Ring back to our guide so we wouldn't be tempted by its dark power, we went to check out the river which the Fellowship boated down through to Argonath. It is also the river where the truly original bungy jump is located.

We then went to the nearby Arrowtown, where they filmed the prologue to the first movie, where Isildur is riding with the ring and then ambushed:

Finally, after returning to Queenstown, we had delicious coffee and cocoa at Patagonia Chocolates, a cute chocolate/gelato cafe right by the water.

So, that was it for today! As always, our Flickr has more photos! Tomorrow we're hoping to rent a car and drive around to nearby towns, so cross your fingers for us!