Middle Earth

The area around Queenstown should be renamed Middle Earth. Those locations were used heavily in the filming of The Lord of the Rings.

The photo above shows the location used for Isengard (the tower of the wizard who turned evil).

I have bought a book detailing the locations used in the films. I will be travelling to many of the places, and it is always fun to compare them to what is seen in the films.

The Narnia film also used this location. Apparently, they are currently filming a Narnia sequel, as well as a number of car commercial in the area. I have seen a lot of movie equipment trucks in the vicinity.

The Black Robins are very cheeky! This one is pecking at my backpack. It has probably learned that packs often contain food. It is even smart enough to attack the seams!

I was hiking and photographing in the regenerating rainforest around Lake Sylvan when this happened.

More fun NZ facts:

New Zealand had no mammals, except for three species of bats, until around 1000 years ago. That’s when Polynesians arrived (they became the Maori). For long ocean voyages, the Polynesians brought live rats as a source of food. When they arrived, the rats either escaped or were released.

The fauna of New Zealand was almost entirely bird-based. Most of these birds had no natural predators (except, perhaps, other birds). Many became flightless, since foraging on the ground takes less energy than flying, and flying is mainly needed to escape to safety.

The largest bird was the Moa, which stood nine feet tall! This was extinct before Europeans arrived, probably due to Maori hunting and rats eating eggs and chicks.

Europeans introduced rabbits, which got out of control due to a lack of predators. So then they introduced the Stoat (a small form of Weasel) as a predator. However, the flightless birds are far easier to catch and eat than rabbits. As a result, New Zealand has lost a great many bird species.