Morning dawned overcast and cloudy, though as we drove out of Te Anau the weather cleared up considerably. In Queenstown we checked into our hotel (the Novatel - thank you Robert and Connie for recommending it! We loved it!) and Mom went to return the rental car while I walked to catch the shuttle for a trail ride I’d decided to do: The Ride of the Rings. Yeah, it’s a horse back ride that takes you through a bunch of filming locations. I’d wanted to do a trail ride at some point on our trip, and it only seemed natural to do this one, as my LOTR sightseeing was sadly lacking. The bus drove us to Glenorchy, a small town about 45 minutes north of Queenstown, and (remarkably) about 30 km from Milford Sound.
(A quick note about geography: because of the mountains and impassable terrain, Milford Sound is only 30 km from Glenorchy, but if you wanted to drive there it’d be a five and a half hour drive! There are very few roads in this part of the South Island, until you come to the towns, because of the terrain.)
I was the second most experienced rider on the trip - one woman had owned horses before, her 12 year old daughter had ridden a few times, one girl had never been on a horse, and a guy had been on once or twice. The problem, for me at least, was that we rode English - a style I have very little familiarity with. I’m used to Western riding, where the saddle has a pommel and horn and cups you really well. English saddles tilt downwards a bit from back to front, so you have to use your legs and the stirrups to keep yourself in there. Which will be useful information for you guys to have in a bit…
We grabbed helmets and dropped off our bags and then drove another 20 minutes to a preserved area - I forgot the name of it. It’s run by a private trust whose sole goal is to keep the land untouched (ie no condos, roads, or shopping malls). When Peter Jackson first applied for permission to film on their land, they turned him down because they worried about the impact of a huge film crew on the area. He asked again, and this time gave them a $40K donation and a solemn promise to leave everything exactly as he found it, and they accepted. He also built access roads, with their permission, and it was those roads that we road along on our ride. (And by road I mean unpaved grassy track with two indentations for wheels, and that’s it) According to our tour guide (and American, believe it or not!), PJ took this very seriously. Before building sets or altering the landscape at al, he had his location dept take detailed photos of the area, and then when they moved bushes, rocks, trees, etc, they put them in a specially built greenhouse a bit out of town, and then at the end of the shoot they replanted everything where it had been. I’d forgotten how much respect I had for that man, until I heard that. The ride was great - we rode through the forest at the end of the first movie, where Boromir dies and the hobbits run from the uruk-hai (right? Or am I thinking of the wrong bad guy?), and saw most of the landscape around Isengard, and Fangorn Forest. What was funny about a few of these locations is that they were used in the LOTR movies, plus Prince Caspian (the second Narnia movie), and Wolverine. So two feet to the left is where the hobbits ran down the hill, but right here is where Caspian sounded his horn. And down there is where Saruman’s tower was inserted using CGI, but just over the river is where they built the farmhouse (that later explodes) in the beginning of Wolverine. Even coming from LA, with my knowledge of film production, I found this all pretty funny. It’s like this tiny area has become exterior location central!
Ok, back to the horseback ride. Overlooking Isengard, our guide said she was going to take our pictures, but first we had to crest a small hill. She warned us that our horses sometimes like to trot up this hill, so be wary if you’ve never trotted before. I figured I was fine - I mean c’mon, it’s a trot! Right as she finished her sentence, something spooked her horse and he took off at a flat-out gallop up this hill, which of course egged most of the other horses into doing the same thing. I managed to hold on for about 15 seconds, and then began reaching for things that weren’t there, like a pommel or a horn. Stupid English saddles. I didn’t quite fall off - more like a slow slide to the left, and then I ended up in the grass next to the path. Thankfully (this was my real worry) all the other horses avoided hitting me on their way up, and my horse stopped once he got to the top. I was fine, though the guide was worried - in the end I fell about three feet onto a patch of soft grass; I was very lucky, but I felt like an idiot. I’m going to continue to blame the saddle, and you’d all be wise to agree J
Other things of note re: the ride…. My horse, Oscar, was a movie star! One of the guides at this company (Dart Stables) rode him in the Riders of Rohan scene in the third movie. I gave him an extra pat when I found that out! Even cooler, to me anyway, is that the horse in front of me had been in Hercules! Yay for movie star horses!
Back to Queenstown: I took a bath (man, hotels are awesome after staying in a gross hostel), and then Mom and I went out for dinner. We settled on a seafood place, because we really wanted to experience the Seafood of the area. (FYI: Neither of us eat lamb, venison, or kangaroo, so that left all of the “specialty” meats out of the question on our trip) I ordered the “Cod Pie” and Mom had “groper,” not to be confused with grouper. Mom’s fish was really chewy, like a monkfish, and while she appreciated the local dish I’m not so sure she liked it too much. My fish pie was really interesting - they poured a thick stew containing chunks of fish into a fillo pastry bowl. Not something I’d order again, but I’m glad I tried it.
While I was on my ride Mom was exploring the town. Here’s what she has to say about the time we spent apart:
Queenstown perspective from Mom - very cute, small ski town sitting on edge of a gorgeous lake with snow capped mountains all around. We weren’t prepared to ski - but enjoyed the town never the less. I chose to have a relaxing time exploring the shops and took a brisk walk up to the gondola ride to check it out. It was a brilliant sunny day and I walked through a small cemetery on the hillside marveling at some of the very old tombstones. The early settlers came in the mid l850’s, and from the looks of the tombstones, many came from Ireland. Hard to imagine living here 150 years ago.
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