one of the things i really wanted to do in queenstown was the LOTR tour. oh yeah, super geek, stop reading if you want to be judgmental. i didnt actually know the physical locations of a lot of the filming because my geographical knowledge of new zealand is quite poor. that has somewhat changed. deer park heights is about 6km driving from the center of queenstown. its probably only 2km as the crow flies since its across the lake. a lot of the filming of two towers, especially the rohan battle scenes and refugees, was done there. in 7 years, not much has changed on the locations.
we spent a fair amount of time walking around deer park heights. as the name would suggest the location is a deer farm. it also has heaps of other animals- llamas, sheep, goats, (mordor) donkeys, miniature horses, and other stuff that we drove by. the farmer currently allows private cars to come up to the farm pay $20 and feed the animals. our tour guide made fun of the fact that he thinks people are going there because they want to see animals.
on the day we did the tour they were building a set for the fliming of wolverine, the prequel, or whatever the next movie in that series is, i dont know. the location has been used for heaps of other stuff, like being canada, north korea, england, basically anywhere in the world.
our tour guide was awesome. a total nerd, i loved it. as we went around picking up people at the start of the day he was asking everyone if they had seen the extended editions of the movies. well, yah. he was an obsessive about rocks and that is how he personally found where many of the scenes were shot. in one scene where eowyn and merry are having a chat before they ride off to battle, he found the exact rock merry sits on by the white moss than is growing on the rock. some other scenes to do with the battle between the rohan riders and the wargs he knew the exact angles the camera shot from and how far you had to crouch down to get that same camera angle. the cliff that aragorn falls off of is also on that location.. however, there is no river below. its maybe a 1.5m drop to a big rock and grass.
later in the day we got the fun part- playing with the props. the swords we got to see were all replicas (mostly worth $800 USD a piece) but still fun. and the tour guide had an actual elvish cloak used in the fliming that we got to wear. haha. its insured for $10,000 USD. he doesnt know who the cloak belonged, to but he suspects it was sean astin, his stunt double or an extra cloak of his. his leaf was usually worn pointing in the opposite direction to all the others in the fellowship. that was fun.
the last location on the tour was a little river in arrowtown. where a two day shoot got 30 seconds of footage into the theatrical release and 45 seconds into the extended editions. its the 'preface' scenes with isildur being cut down by orcs. also some of the nazgul riders were filmed there and overlayed onto another river for the shots of them chasing arwen in riverdell. the arrowtown river is shallow allowing horses to actually cross it as opposed to the one in the film where its 4m deep. and then arwen is overlayed in those shots too. thg uide told us so much of this stuff because he knows the locations so well, all marked out by their rocks.

the hobbit movie is possibly going to be filmed in new zealand. i think it should. rumor for who is going to play bilbo are british actors.. including ewan macgregor. as much as i like him (outside of star wars, like everyone else) i dont see him playing a hobbit. too tall. the list of possible locations for the hobbit seemed to be pretty long.

today we flew by mount cook and over the canterbury plains. i have aerial photos of those. the south island of new zealand is really spectacular. it can be anywhere in the world- some say its scotland with better weather.


lake wakatipu
aka. the aduin river the fellowship canoes down (FOTR)

tarn on deer park heights
rohan refugees on their flights to helm's deep (Two Towers)

riverside path in arrowtown
the road isildur rides when he is taken by orcs

king elessar's swords, broken and reforged