Kia Ora: Glenorchy: Gateway to Lord of the Rings in Paradise

On one cold, windy morning we got up to go to Glenorchy. This is the area that has a section of land called Paradise. In Paradise, there are multiple locations where The Lord of the Rings movies were filmed. We got to drive around and see big fields, mountains, sheep, big puddles, and forests. As we were driving around we had our Lord of the Rings location book that told us exactly where parts of the movies where filmed. So this helped us know where to stop the vans and get out to take pictures on the exact spots. It was cool to see the picture in the book and then actually see it in real life. We have a bunch of Lord of the Rings goo-roos in our group, so it was a fun activity to get to see and do!

For the drive I was in Jame's van and he was telling us that a lot of different movies are filmed in Paradise. He said there have been multiple years when he was driving the groups of BYU girls around, that movies were being filmed (and they could see the sets and everything). Nothing was being filmed when we were there, but it was still cool to see!

Here we go on our fun drive :)

Some of my favorite parts about the South Island was just getting to look
out the window during our drives and see the beauty all around!

Glenorchy......and Paradise

So pretty in real life

It's funny how in NZ they have bridges like this where only ONE car
can drive on at a time, so you have to wait your turn.

I love James and his crazy driving. He didn't want to drive on the gravel,
so he went on the grass haha!

There was some big horse show going on for Lord of the Rings.

Sheep sheep sheep and more sheep!!! They were trying to run away from us.

Sheep are everywhere in NZ.

Some of the girls got out to try and catch the sheep. No luck!

These deep puddles were all over and James loved to CRUISE through
them. He would drive so fast it was fun to have the water flying all
around us haha.

Getting ready for a ZOOM through the puddle.

Here he goes! Look at our wonderful vans :) haha, love them!

haha oh man I cannot even explain how cool, funny, and nice James
is. He wanted us to take a picture of NZ's cute little outhouses, so he
went out to be the outhouse model.

He's posing for the other van here haha.

Oh James! We love you! :)

Here's our Lord of the Rings book. We just found this
site and were about to get out to take a picture.
(we were at that picture and it is the caption that reads
"Below: The golden caves of Lothlorien")