Visiting Middle Earth
New Zealand popped onto the map of many geeky people (such as myself) with the filming of The Lord of the Rings trilogy there a few years ago. Many of the places where filming occurred are in far-off, remote locations, but many are also relatively accessible. The road atlas I got for our trip also indicated filming locations throughout New Zealand, so I made an effort to stop at ones near where we were. Sometimes it was difficult to find the actual location, or to see how it actually was from the movie. Here’s what we found.
The Arrow River This is the Arrow River, in Arrowtown on the south island. In The Fellowship of the Ring, it played the role of the Ford of Bruinen, the river that protected the lands of Elrond, which Arwen uses to wash away the Ringwraiths when they are chasing her and Frodo back to Rivendell.
The Kawaru River This is the Kawaru River, outside of Queenstown. In The Fellowship of the Ring, it played the role of the great Anduin River, which the fellowship canoed down before splitting up. 
The Kawaru River In order to get these shots of the river, we had to drive along a dirt road etched out of a cliff above the river. The road was wide enough for one care, but just barely, so it made it very exciting when another car came along (the road also led to a winery, so we met a few cars along the way). Mom did not like this road.
View of Red Crater and Mt. Ngauruhoe When I visited New Zealand back in 2007 with Lana and Gus, we hiked the Tongariro Crossing, which is a volcanic region in the north island. It also served as the inspiration for Mount Doom and Mordor in The Return of the King, and you can see how evil it looks, even in good weather.
