12 January 2014: Journey to Edoras

This morning we joined up with a company for a LOR tour to where scenes from the Golden Hall of Rohan were filmed. I am sure that on a fine day the scenery would be spectacular. Given the rain and fog, it looked more like a trip to the Misty Mountains. Still, it was a fun trip. En route through the Canterbury Plains, we passed fields of oats, barley, canola (that looked nearly fluorescent green and yellow), and lavender. The Kiwis also farm red deer, and we passed some fields of grazing deer. We learned that NZ has about 6 million dairy cows.

Mount Sunday was the site for the city of the Rohan. It is a small mountain, but backed by large mountains behind it, it makes a beautiful site for the scenes. Our hike was in a steady rain and strong winds. At the summit, the rain felt more like hail. I was surprised by the landscape, as it looked so barren, especially for summer. Our guide said that summer is typically dry (ha!), so the grass can be very yellow. There were also bare trees.

Farmers in the region often cut pine trees in unusual ways to create windbreaks. They trim the sides and tops to make the trees grow dense. The sides are sometimes no more than a metre or so thick. They look interesting!

We also got to view a couple videos about the making of the scenes in the area and about the actors' experiences. Especially the battle of Helm's Deep, also created from the scenes in that area, were brutal to create, as the actors spent over a month acting at night in rain and cold. Having been there, I have a small idea of it.

Some photos from the day: