Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Mashing Up Middle Earth

The scene has changed dramatically, we've continued south along the western coast, ducking inland to traverse the Haast Pass. The waterfalls have been so numerous that it is no longer an amusement unless they are truly majestic.

Our first 'tramp' of the day, as they call hiking here, was to Lake Matheson. About an hour's journey, we arrived at the View of Views lookout, the most photographed scene in EnZed. Yet. I can't recall ever seeing this vista of vistas elsewhere, perhaps with a good looking couple kayaking across a mirror pond with snowy mountain tops in the background.

We've been pulling off the road every few hours to do a quick trail of about twenty to thirty minutes, usually leading to a waterfall or river pools or vistas. The Department of Conservation, or the diggy diggy DOC y'alls, has really responded well to all the tourism that has come to EnZed. The trails are extremely well groomed, marked and mapped. The entire country feels like a well manicured regional park.

We've caught ourselves falling into the Lord of the Rings mindset here, gawking at the mystical landscapes and understamding why these films worked so well here. Everything seems so untouched - like England before there were any people. We're in the high plains area around Lake Wanaka (circa the Kingdom of Rohan - for all you Tolkien fans), where we will hang up our hobbit boots for the night. Every place we've stayed in thus far has had the Lord of the Rings trilogy for guests to view - we've yet to partake, but I'm guessing that there will be many more opportunities to do so.

posted by ncawthon at 7:18 PM