Chapter eight

"Queenstown falls on color"

It's morning. And it's a wonderfu day. Today we'll meet Mike and Brian, who are travelling around the South Island the other way around. Waiting for the two american boys with their Wicked van, Hansi Jesper and I walk around town, looking for cool stuff and warm clothes and trying to book the cruise in Milford sound for tomorrow. When we finally meet, we're ready for an exploration that will take us to quite some places. The little Lord-of-the-Rings-location book that Jesper's borrowed from the uni library helps us getting up to what I'd dare calling a breathtaking scenary.





Deers and goats walk around happily ignoring us and not scared at all. They even lay down in the middle of the road and glance at two cars shaking their heads and proably thinking "oh lord, another bunch of freaks".



The Chariot really behaves on this kind of road, our 4x4 baby shows what's shes worth. On top of track there are small blue lakes, yellow meadows and of course, a building that looks like a chinese prison. And no, I haven't got a clue of why that thing is there. But it's pretty fascinating, surely worthed a click of my Olympus.





Here and there are some locations that were part of LOTR. If you're a great fan you'll surely recognize them yourself. If you, like me, are a goldfish who can hardly remember whether Arwen hooked up with Aragorn or with Gimli, just have a good look at all of this, than close your eyes and imagine you're walking though these meadows. Imagine you sit down, with the grass straws tickeling your arms, legs and face. Imagine you see the sky and the rest of the world though a yellow, organic frame. And all of this smells like the sun that right in that moment is warming your sking, fighting the breeze.







We drive up to Arrowtown once again, to walk up some kind of Nazgull-bataille river. Hansi and Jesper disappear up the river, on an expedition to fin the exact spot where the Nazgull scene was shot. Mike and I walk around for a while taking pictures, than we all meet in town.



It's the day before Easter, and Jesper completes the first step of the chocolate-egg plan, buying a Cadbury egg trying not to get caught by Hansi. We drive back to Queenstown, and Mike meets us for an incredibly good dinner at a mexican restaurant. We finally salute him: we have to leave, in order to get to Milford Sound by tomorrow morning. I drive, Hansi reads the map, and Jesper prepares the small clue-drawings for the chocolate-egg-quest in the dark of the backseat. We stop in Te a...something (I just got used to call it Timbuctu) and park the car in a field right outside town. Tomorrow we'll fill COF with fuel and drive up to the fjords. In the black of the night the quest for the egg hidden inside the car starts, and it's good fun to watch Hansi movig like a tornado on spide inside the Chariot to find all the clues. He eventually finds the chocolate egg, and we all eventually fall asleep. It's been a long day, and tomorrow will be amazing.