日记片段: 新西兰 --- 一个神话的世界

日记片段: 新西兰 --- 一个神话的世界

摄影/文字: JaneW

A piece of my New Zealand dairy

I absolutely loved Queenstown.  The town nestled in an alpine valley at the edge of superb Lake Wakatipu, surrounded by the majestic snow-capped Remarkable that went on over the horizon with large mint coloured lakes at the base, the colours were staggering and contrasting, amazing!   Yet another side of heaven! 

The Remarkable are the mountains I have so many picture of (called the Remarkable because the guy that found them thought it remarkable that the peaks run directly north-south).   This is where I went for jet boating, luge, and one of my colleague, James, even did the scary bungy jumping (jump from 143m-high cliff) who really surprised us all. 

Despite the Milford Sound coach-cruise-coach tour I had with Sally which was absolutely spectacular, the Deer Park Heights turned out to be my best moment ever I experienced during this trip.

Saturday afternoon was a free afternoon for the conference, some went for rafting and jet boating again while the others were wondering around the town and shopping, I decided to have a scenic tour in Deer Park Height on my own.  I booked myself in with the Deer Park Scenic Tours.  Drive about 20 minutes, head out of town toward Frankton, you find Deer Park Heights, a nearly 2000 acre working farm which raises red deer.  There were many animals in addition to the deer in the park, I encountered them as we drove through, they include Bison, Llama, Goats, Sheep, Himalayan Thar, Miniature Horses, Donkeys, Scotish Highland Cattle, Yak etc, etc.  Most of them were all very tame. I had fed the deer for a long time, so fun.  Sitting on the green grassed hill, facing such beautiful scenery, watching the sun rise and sun set, surrounded by all kinds of lovely little creatures, doing a bit of painting, photographing, or even writing a memoir­…… what an ideal life!  I couldn’t think of any better than that.

To experience Tolkien’s Middle Earth was actually my main reason for this tour.  Deer Park Heights is a Lord of the Rings location hunter’s paradise. A significant number of scenes were filmed here, Rohan refugees journey from Edoras to Helms Deep and their battle with the Wargs and Orcs (“The Two Towers”); Gandolf riding to Minus Tirith (“The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Return of the King”); Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli see the corsair ships sailing up the Anduin (“The Return of the King”) and many more…

The view from Deer Park Heights was phenomenal: 360 degrees all around, taking in Queenstown, Frankton and The Remarkable mountain range.  That was where I took the shots and later formed the 2 of my Panorama photos.

I recalled sitting in Queenstown against the mountain range aptly titled the Remarkable and feeling I was actually living the books.  It was like Tolkien had walked across New Zealand.  All I need to do now is watch the movies again, and see if I can spot the areas, bearing in mind that a lot of computer trickery will have disguised some of the features.

Walked out of the Middle Earth and back to the real world, all I would like to say to this trip is --- Simply Amazing!