Abba Garden Motel Queenstown

... in so many places, it wasn't just one place! Yes Lord of the Rings is filmed all over New Zealand in both islands.


We went up to the remarkable mountains, which in Lord of the Rings, was used as the Dimrill Dale where Aragon leads them to Lothlorien. It was also used with several shots for Mordor, and when in the final trilogy, Frodos is climbing mountains to get to Mordor. Next we head off to Coronets Peak, whereby ...

... says, "What the hell was that?" I start laughing and get my camera. We all got out and discovered that Josh backed the car into a brick wall that he swears was put there while we were enjoying our tasty pizza. I guess he popped the bumper in place and we were on our way. He was quite paranoid the rest of the way though. Half way back to Queenstown we stopped for petrol and I decided that I’d start my adventure driving. We all got in the car and all just ...

... us up through a narrow gorge... I thought we were going die. The boat goes so close to the rocks... I had to shut my eyes. Then every so often the driver spins his arm around above his head and the boat does a 360 spin, getting everyone suitably wet. I think this was more scary than the sky dive!

We treated ourselves to meal out because we had voucher for half price drinks (Rosetta would be proud).

It's a snow town. Buses to go up to the mountain to ski. Buses to go out to kayak, jet boat and every other cold sport you can think of. Seems like the average age in this town is around 30 - maybe. We did a little shopping, ate some great thai food and took the gondola up to the mountain top for dinner and a show the native maori indians do. Cool evening.

... I equate with New Zealand. But rainforest it has, along with millions and millions of ferns! Ferns were all I could see for a good part of the morning, lining the roads we were driving on. A couple times the driver would say something like "and there in front of us is Mount Cook, but of course you're not going to see that today, with all this rain. Bummer." It was a bit of a ...

So I've just doen 3 bungee jumps in the past 24 hrs. Last night: The Ledge bungee - you have to get a gondola up a cliff face to get to it. 47m in the dark into the mist.

Then the Kawarau bridge this morning - the original and first commercial bungee site. 43m over water.

Then this afternoon - the big one. Nevis bungee - 137m from a cable car into a canyon. Sweet as!

... Japaneses, Chinese, Thai, Indian, Korean.  Indian won out due to a 2for1 Curry special.  Made out pretty well with Rogan Josh, Chicken Korma, a couple special Naans and a nicely spiced Chai tee (figured it to be ginger that gave it that special kick).

... met in the bar later and emotions were high for those of the gang leaving in the morning. It was decided that everyone would meet in an agreed place in England for a Kiwi reunion as everyone had formed some really good friendships. With only a few more days left of New Zealand, on reflection I really don't want to leave. I didn't expect to enjoy myself as much as I have or to meet as many cool people. Better make the most of the time we've got left!

... close to in person. We ended up spending quite some time there as we really enjoyed our chance to take close-up pictures of animals that we would normally not see outside a zoo enclosure. In addition to the animals, the view of Queenstown and the lake it is situated at was equally impressive, leaving us with a ton of pictures to go through afterwards :). On the last day we took a small boat cruise on the lake with the TSS Earnslaw, which took us across the ...