I couldn't resist the chance to go horse riding while in Queenstown, especially on an expedition that traversed the delta flats of the Dart and Rees Rivers. The scenery around Glenorchy proved as spectacular as promised in the brochure. Throw in a personable and loquacious guide--named Rick Martin, I kid you not!--and an equally personable (but somewhat quieter) horse named Winston, and a group of horse-riding tourists that would have done a UN assembly proud...could I have asked for more? Those are Winny's ears in the photo, BTW. He was a real camera hog.
Our guide had a ready patter of Lord of the Rings trivia--those are the Misty Mountains, over there is where they situated Eisengard (by CGI because the shifting ground wouldn't let them build a real tower), these two horses were in the big battle scene (whose name I've forgotten) and one of them was dyed black to be part of the Dark Riders. Etc, etc, etc. And even though I'm not a LoTR fan, I've seen all the movies and it was amazing to witness the spectacular settings and hear the work done in creating some of those sequences.
Driving to Glenorchy, we passed what Popstar (the Ricky Martin character's nickname) referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as Glenorchy International Airport. It's really just a heli-pad built alongside this private luxury lakeside resort which is frequented by movie stars and the like. Why? No paparrazzi within bulls' roar. I could have handled a night there for research. The proposal I have just sold, you see, features such a resort. Too bad I couldn't afford the $2000 per night tariff! *g*
posted by Bronwyn Jameson @ 8:45 AM
