LOTR and bathrooms with locks that work

9/2/2010

Camping at Lake Paringa. 1) My bathroom stall didn't lock and I was walked in on by some random dude, but oddly enough I wasn't mortified. Don't get me wrong, I was embarrassed, but not as much as I would have been a few years ago. I must be growing up or something. The black flies at were horrific and cooking dinner was nearly impossible. I fled to the car before it was finished. We had teriyaki veggies with rice. It was delicious and we ate it in the car.

10/2/2010

I woke up around 8ish. Gord had thought the sand flies wouldn't be so bad if we slept in and waited til late morning. I thought it was raining when I woke up and started whinging in my head about having to break down the tent in the rain again. Then I opened my eyes and realized there were about 30 sand flies flying between our rain fly and the tent. I took a deep breath, packed my taun taun, rolled up my sleeping pad and made a mad sprint to the car. Then we drove to Wanaka. Gord went to find nylon webbing so I could anchor myself to trees and rocks when belaying him. If I anchor myself to other things when I belay him, I won't go flying 10 feet in the air when he falls. We ended up going to the same place for nylon webbing at different times and both talking to the same guy working at the outdoor store. Turns out Gord asked the wrong questions or something because the guy told him that they didn't carry what he was looking for. I'm not really sure what happened, but when I walked in, I saw the webbing next to the climbing ropes and bought 4 meters and walked out. There was a LOTR (Lord of the Rings) spot in Wanaka. It's a backdrop used when Gandalf is riding around on his horse. Then we went to look at Mt. Aspiring on a scary bumpy gravel road and Gord hit a bird (more about birds later because it turns out that NZ birds are STUPID). We didn't spend that much time in Wanaka, but there was another LOTR spot where the fellowship was South of Rohan and were passing by some ruins on a high set of hills. I spent a really long time taking pictures and trying to figure out which was the correct hill. When you watch the scene in the movie, it's clearly shot from a helicopter so it's a bit difficult to pick out the location from a road that is lower than the top of the hills. The ruins were CGI, but the location is clearly set in those hills. Since there wasn't much to do in Wanaka we left and drove to Arrowtown which is extremely close to Queenstown. We arrived in Arrowtown 5 minutes after the Holiday park had closed it's reception desk. It was 9:05 pm and we were ready for showers and sleep. So we did what any travelling youth would do, we parked outside the holiday park and snuck in. We decided to take illegal showers in their facilities, but it turned out we needed $1 coins to operate the showers and neither of us had them. We both ended up walking in and out of the bathrooms looking for the other and just missed each other several times. I didn't want to risk walking to the car to try and find a $1 coin and then have to walk nonchalantly back into the park so I just tried turning on the shower as a last ditch effort. Turns out you pay $1 for a hot shower. So I took a fireman's shower and jumped under the icy stream of water, jumped out, soaped up and then tried to rinse off as a quickly as possible. Not really sure why I called it a fireman's shower. In the end I was clean and eventually warm. It took Gordon a bit longer to figure out the shower because I was already back at the car when he came walking up to do something. He mentioned that he just figured out that the showers work without coins and was about to go back to take one. After our super sneaky showers we drove away from the Arrowtown Holiday Park and parked next to a helipad off of a gravel drive by the main road.

11/2/2010

The next morning I went to Kawarau Bridge and bungy jumped. Please see the previous entry about the Bungy. I was so excited after the Bungy that I had to blog about it, even though it was out of chronological order. After my bungy we drove to Arrowtown to LOTR it up a bit. Half of the Ford of Bruinen was filmed in Arrowntown. The Ford of Bruinen is the scene when Liv Tyler and Frodo are being chased by the black riders. The scene by the river when Liv Tyler uses the power of the elves to make the river rise was actually filmed in two places. The side where the black riders waited while Liv Tyler called the river up was in Arrowtown, but Liv Tyler's side was filmed in Skippers Canyon. This is a picture of me pretending to be a black rider (one of the 9 Kings who fell victims to the rings). We also took a picture in Gladden Fields which is a rather unexciting LOTR spot. Arrowtown was a cute little town that apparently is a good spot for tour buses to stop for a little walk around break. It reminds me of Souther Seasons when the old people buses drop them off. Then we sped off to Queenstown for a lovely visit to the adventure capital of NZ. We found the chocolate shop with free wireless. Free wireless might be common in the USA, but it's nigh unheard of in NZ. We heard about Patagonia from a girl we met in Takaka and low and behold it was true, free wireless. Though every time we used it, I bought something because I felt it was only right. Also their ice cream, drinks and food were delicious so it wasn't difficult to patronize the shop. We also went to the famous Ferg Burger. If you ever go to Queenstown, you have to get a Ferg Burger. They are a true famous institution here. Burgers start off at about $10, but are huge and can be two meals. We went there for two different lunches and I ate half my burger for the following dinner both times. The first time we went I got a normal Ferg Burger and Gordon got something huge and monstrous. They were amazing.

Note: We try to sleep in DOC (Department of Conservation) camp sites because they are cheap/free, it's an honesty system. Gordon found one on Skippers Road and it was the closest one to Queenstown. Note 2: I really wanted to go to the LOTR scene where Arwen (Liv Tyler) has Frodo on the horse and is riding away from the black riders and has the confrontation by the river. I really wanted to see where it was filmed, it's called the Ford of Bruinen. The side of the river that Liv Tyler is on was filmed in the Canyon. Unfortunately, we had talked about it and already decided that it wasn't feasible given our car being a tiny Mazda 323 GLX Hatchback. The scene is located down a place called Skippers Canyon and it's 14 - 26 km of torturous driving. Skippers Canyon has a sign that says you need 4 wheel drive and it needs to be your car i.e. no rental cars down the canyon. So after all the warnings Gord had put his foot down because it's a road that sounds like it would completely dominate our little Mr. Collins. Back to the story though, we started down Skippers road and the road became more and more steep and the conditions worsened. There were huge patches of thick sand and lots of large bumps and dips which made our car pop up and crash the underbelly on large rocks. Gordon ignored the warning signs at the beginning of the road because he was determined to get to the DOC site. After a few kilometers we realized that Skippers Road was Skippers Canyon. I was secretly delighted because this meant I would get to find the Ford of Bruinen, but I was little apprehensive because I wasn't sure Mr. Collins would be able to get out of the Canyon. We barely made it down to the DOC site. It was slightly surreal because the DOC site was right next to a historic miners town that had two buildings and was clearly being restored. Also the bathrooms at the DOC site had water! This is highly unusual because most DOC sites have bathrooms, but the toilets are just holes in the ground. So to find bathrooms where the toilets flush was surprising especially after a ridiculous drive into a Canyon that not many people drive down. There are $200 tours that people take to get into the Canyon to visit the LOTR site, there is rafting in the Canyon river and there is a bungy jump there. So people do drive down there, but normally only on tours. If you can't tell, I was very excited about the bathroom. It was a little creepy because we were all alone deep in Skippers Canyon, but then we went on a mini walk away from the historic town and our DOC campsite and we saw a Ranger truck and tent.