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Hobbits in Queenstown?

We try to find LOTR film sites and Jetboat through a canyon

The drive from Te Anau to Queenstown is considered part of the Southern Touring route, but there isn’t much to see except for farmland. We thought about going to a Lord of the Rings filming location along the way but we realized at the turnoff that it was 30km down a gravel road, and we didn’t feel comfortable taking the old rental car that far on an unpaved road. Instead, we spent most of the drive stuck behind slow-moving traffic.

When we got to Queenstown, we tried to get to another LOTR filming location but it was on private land and inaccessible. We went up a ski hill instead, because it looked like it would offer us a good view of the town.

The Remarkables ski area is one of the two ski areas in Queenstown. Although it is in the mountains, it is only a ski “hill” because it felt like we gained 80 or 90% of the mountain’s elevation just driving up the access road. I can’t imagine the runs having more than a 100–200m change in elevation. The lodge is a small building for only a couple hundred people. It was closed, so the only thing to do in the ski area was to take some photos of a waterfall beside the chair lift.

The views of the valley from the road were spectacular. I also identified the other ski hill on the opposite side of the valley for another day’s visit.

For LOTR fans: The lone hill on the left side of the panorama below is the site where the Battle of the Wags was filmed for “The Two Towers”. It is right behind Yuki in the photo following the panorama.

Queenstown is considered the adventure capital of New Zealand, if not the world. The town offers ziplines, skydiving, and bungee jumps in every shape and form. Before we made it to the town, I thought that we would probably do one extreme sport in the adventure capital. However, when we saw that a bungee jump was to set us back $200, I balked. It also wasn’t something either of us were overly excited about, so we decided to do a much cheaper Jetboat ride instead. There are three providers in Queenstown but the coupons we found were only valid for the two unexciting ones, so we decided to pay full price ($150 each for a half-hour trip) after much research.

Yuki and I got to sit in the front with the driver, and both of us found the ride pretty thrilling. The driver gets within 2–3 feet of the canyon walls, which seemed to scare some of the people in the back — but we found it to be more exciting than scary.

After the Jetboat ride, we decided to go up the other ski hill in town. It’s called the Coronet and is equally as visible from the valley as the other ski hill. It was remarkably beautiful, and we spent a long time just sitting in the car enjoying the view and listening to music.

We tried to find a third LOTR filming site in the nearby town, Arrow. It is a park (near downtown) where the river in The Fellowship of the Ring comes alive with water horses to wash away the Nasgul chasing Arwen as she brings Frodo to the elf city. We got to the park and a sign instructed us to walk 200m up the river to see the filming site, but we decided that we didn’t want to bother because it didn’t look too scenic.

I also realized that even if we found the right location, it wouldn’t mean anything to us because we couldn’t remember the movies well enough to know what the scene should look like. We gave up and went to one last LOTR filming location in the area.

This location is a gorge below a highway that flows under an arch bridge. We drove right to the edge of the cliff. According to a custom Google Maps map of filming locations that we found online, we were standing right above the exact filming location.

Though we couldn’t identify the LOTR scene, it was a beautiful spot. In the evening, I went back to look up the scenes on YouTube. This is where the Fellowship of the Ring take their boats down a river and pass two large statues that have their palms facing outwards.

That evening, I realized that to find these filming locations in New Zealand is to do the films a great disservice. As we re-watch the movie or parts of it, we come to realize that the magical scene was actually filmed in a location where cars would have zoomed across the highway nearby, and where a bungee-jumping bridge sits right around the corner. It takes away the magic of the film. So, we decided to stop looking for LOTR filming sites — besides, we thought, there are enough beautiful landscapes in New Zealand that we don’t need to research film locations to tell us where to look!

We finished our time in Queenstown with another “bookme” deal for steak at an Irish pub. This stone-cooked steak was probably the tenderest, most delicious steak I’ve ever had. Watching it go from raw to cooked was such a sight (and smell) and we highly recommend it! It was very filling and came with a healthy amount of sides.

When we left for the next town, Wanaka, we didn’t look for anymore LOTR sites. Instead, we followed the signs for scenic drives. The car had to climb a big hill coming out of Queenstown, and there is a good viewpoint of the surrounding valley at the top.

The view isn’t quite as good as the Coronet’s, but it is nonetheless impressive and high enough to give a good vantage point. The drive only takes about an hour and doesn’t have anything noteworthy except for a fence covered in old bras and its accompanying fundraising box for breast cancer.

In Wanaka, we went to Puzzleworld. It seems to be the biggest stop in town for tourists. We couldn’t get a “bookme” voucher in time for this, but it only costed $20 to get in, so the $5 savings wasn’t significant.

Puzzleworld has two “puzzling” parts: the first is a series of rooms with illusions and mind-benders. The second is an outdoor maze with four coloured towers in each corner. There are two ways to do the maze: the regular way is to get to all four towers in any order, while the challenge is to do it in a specific order. We did the challenge and were quite happy with ourselves, giddily completing it in 45 minutes compared to the listed average time of 1–1.5hrs.

After Puzzleworld, it was too early to check into our AirBnB and we didn’t have plans to go anywhere else so we went up to the nearby Lake Hawea. We ended up hanging out beside the lake reading ebooks because it was so nice.

It’s a good thing we went to Lake Hawea, because the weather was good and we got some good shots from the viewpoint. We knew we’d be driving this road the next day on our way to Franz Josef Glacier on the West coast of the island, but the weather forecast predicted rain.

Our AirBnB in Wanaka was really great. The host, an American couple, suggested hiking up Iron Mountain next door for sunset. It looked a lot higher from the house, but it didn’t take us long to climb the steep path and reach the top to see a spectacular sunset. We found ourselves at the peak of a small mountain in the centre junction of several valleys, with panoramic views in every direction.

This little hour-long hike made Wanaka one of my favourite places in New Zealand and the place I decided I’d live if I ever moved here. There are apparently a lot of mountain biking trails in the area, and most of the mountains are hike-able.

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