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October 11, 2009 - Wellington
Today we set off on a tour that included Lord of The Ring(LOTR) filming sights, a seal colony, a winery and other opportunities to see the scenery and lay of the land. This ended up being about a 10 hour tour and is the last one we are signed up for during our big adventure. The tours have been great ways to learn a lot and to have someone else drive so we don't have to go through the headaches of driving and figuring out where stuff was. Our tour was a small one today, only 8 people.
In the morning we visited several sites where scenes from the various LOTR movies had been filmed. Of course, there is nothing left of the elaborate sets, but it was still kind of neat to see where things had been. We saw where Helms Deep had been built (at a quarry), where Rivendell had been built, where Legolas stood guard on the way into Rivendell, the tree that the Orcs danced around, the field that Gandalf took off through on his way to visit Saraman (sp?) and the pillars that they walked by during their talk, where Frodo, Sam, and the others hid from the Ring Wraith under the roots of a tree (the roots were built out of styrofoam, but the forest was real), and we saw the white cliffs that the Fellowship passes after putting their canoes in the water. Here are photos of what the places look like now:
Hiding from the Ring Wraith.
Rivendell was built just past the bend in the river under the electrical pole.
The area where Legolas stood guarding the way to Rivendell.
The white cliffs that you see behind the Fellowship of the Ring after they put their canoes into the water
After lunch at a Cafe in Featherston, we crossed a mountain pass. The scenery was beautiful and there was gorse and broom everywhere (broom is the yellow flower that reminded me of forsythia). I spent part of my time looking at the scenery and part with my hands over my eyes. There were several times I wasn't sure that our tour bus was going to make the sharp curve...I was sure we were going hurtling off the road. I was so glad when we got down from the mountain!
Gorse run amok! It started out being brought here for ornamental hedges. The cows loved it and spread its seed everywhere!
Mountain view
Next we took a coastal road out to a seal colony. It holds the distinction of being the furthest north colony in New Zealand that breeds and lives here all year long. The road out was a bit treacherous. Our guide showed us where the road had been eroding away due to ocean action and where a house had been pushed into the sea when the sea took away the land underneath it. And then there were the rocks on the road that had fallen down from the bank on the left.
Then we got to the seal colony. We loved watching the seals on the rocks, the baby seals chasing each other, and some swimming in the protected pond. The longer you looked, the more you saw. And Katrina and I found shells! That was one of the things I really wanted to do on this trip, but I had been unsuccessful so far. I was so tickled to find all of these lovely and, to me, unusual shells!
Beautiful Coast
I loved watching the surf break over the rocks
The seal loved watching the surf break over the rocks too!
I think the sun was in his eyes
Even seals can have puppy dog looks!
Just catching some rays!
Are you talking to me?
Katrina loved the sea and the seals too!
The shells I found
After the seals, we drove back up the crumbling road, across the curvy mountain and over to Mount Victoria where we took some pictures of Wellington and visited a memorial to Admiral Byrd.
A view of Wellington>
On our day out, Katrina and I took 274 photos! I deleted close to 100 of them and then chose out the 48 I liked best. If you want to see the ones I didn't put here, you can check them out on Flickr.
