Day 3 - Twizel to Dundedin

After a a leisurely sleep in we checked out of our motel to await for the mornings entertainment. - Having three boys who are Lord of the Rings nerds , and a patient mum/wife,  we had booked ourselves on the two hour "One Ring" tour.  At 10:30 we were picked up in a minivan and were taken on a tour of the local Twizel area that had been used for filming some of the battle scenes from LOTR, in particular the "Battle of Pelannor Fields"

(For you non LOTR nerds, thats when the huge Orc army, complete with "oliphants", is attacking Minas Tirith", and where Eowyn slays the witch king of Agmar!"  Our tour guide Dawn was very enthusiastic and very passionate, and explained in great detail what shots were taken where, what camera angles were used and also provided us with lots of great film trivia. e.g. Sir Ian Mackellan (Gandalf), never rode a horse!, approx $6M worth of make-up was used to make the horses brown / black.  The grass was "spray painted" to make it look greener, and "spider cam", now used on many sporting fields was first used for Lord of the Rings.  One of the best parts of the tour was that we got to dress up and "recreate scenes from the film.  Daniel finally got to be a Hobbit (and a Dwarf), Josh got to be a Ranger, and Lady Eowyn (Marilyn) got to slay the evil Witch King.

Tour guide Dawn was also an extra in one of the Hobbit movies, but she couldn't tell us too much as the movie hasn't been released yet.

After the tour we set off on the drive to Dunedin, about a three hour drive from Twizel.  Once again, the scenery was absolutely spectacular.  Snow-capped mountains in the background in all directions, and mountain lakes which were an unbelievably bright blue.

On the way to Dunedin we stopped at a place called the Elephant Rocks, a series of unusually shaped formations, (which interestingly were also used in filming the final scene from "The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe"

We left the Elephants rocks and continued on our way to Dunedin.  The sky was overcast and very grey.  A light drizzle soon became heavy raindrops which were then replaced by a flurry of hailstones.  The hail was so thick at one stage that we almost had to pull off the road as visibility was down to a few metres.  We were even worried that the windscreen was going to crack and that the car would be covered in dents.  Soon enough the hail stopped, but large piles of hail could still be seen along the side of the road.

We  finally made it into Dunedin around 5:30, and with the help of the GPS, located our accommodation, Apartments at St Clair.  Were all quite tired, so it will probably be a quite night in, eating Pizza and watching Lord of the Rings to see if we can recognise any of the locations.