New Zealand: Day 28

Gold rule

January 30, 2013

The heat wave continued with another day in the low 80s, but it also was another day of gloriously blue skies with bits of high altitude cirrocumulus and cirrostratus clouds. My identification of these cloud types was confirmed by my guide today, and, as I will describe more below, I consider his opinion authoritative. The downside of the cirrostratus clouds is that they frequently are the harbinger of rainy weather, being indicative of a front moving into the area and rain within the following 24 to 36 hours. I want one more day of clear weather, please, just one more day.

I had to say goodbye to my delightful suite at the Minaret Lodge this morning and proceed to my next destination: Te Anau. I've been through Te Anau twice before (Day 19 and Day 20), but on both occasions just for a lunch stop either going towards or coming from Milford Sound. I was looking forward to spending a couple of days in this small town. I met John von Tunzelman, my guide for the day and my B&B host for tonight and tomorrow night, at a crossroads on the way in to Te Anau.

I was a little nervous about this rendezvous because I couldn't rely on my GPS unit; all I had was a small, partial map and a set of verbal instructions. However, all went well, and I met John at the designated spot. Incidentally, I have learned that the driver of our coach tour has an accent, so many of the pronunciation guides I have supplied are inaccurate. It's wah nah ka -- three syllables stressed equally -- not wah KNOCK ah. It's tea AHN naw, not TAY uh naw. Because he is a long-term resident of the region, I considered John's pronunciations more authentic.

Having John as a guide gave me a different perspective on the making of LotR. Before his retirement, John was an official with the New Zealand Department of Conservation, and it was in this capacity that he worked closely with Peter Jackson in the making of The Fellowship of the Ring. John spent his entire professional life working in the Department of Conservation, and his knowledge about matters relating to nature was encyclopedic.

John said his job with the LotR was a very easy one because Jackson and his crew already were very attentive to environmental issues. John said he made a few suggestions here and there, but he said it was a very easy -- and satisfying -- job because mostly he sat back and simply supervised as the crew carried on with their work. It was John's role to ensure that Jackson's crew restored all sites used for filming to their state prior to when filming began. This had been a guiding principle for Peter Jackson all along because he did not wish to despoil the beauty of his native country, and his crew shared this sentiment and were efficient in carrying it out.

On his first day on the set, John noticed that quite a few members of the crew were smokers. He asked Peter Jackson to set up a meeting with the heads of all the crew departments -- lighting, makeup, cinematography, etc. At that meeting John distributed empty 35mm film canisters and asked the departmental chiefs to have all of their crew use them whenever they smoked, and to dispose of their contents properly. He warned them that a single stray spark could lie buried in the underbrush and smolder for three days before starting a serious fire. John said he never found a single cigarette butt in all the days he worked with Jackson's crew.

John was not quite as full of details about the making of the LotR films as Dell and Dawn had been. He did show me a number of sites where scenes had been filmed, but he had more to say about the experience of working closely with Peter Jackson, and the enormous respect he had for him, as did all of the cast and crew. Everyone seemed eager to help Jackson realize his vision, and John became caught up in this enthusiasm as well.

John described Jackson as a very easy-going, good-natured man who at the same time exuded brilliance. John marveled at how Jackson could manage principal photography in one location, while assistant directors were working simultaneously at numerous other locations, sending in their daily footage via a satellite link set-up Jackson brought with him to every location where he worked. After a day of filming, Jackson would then review the secondary footage and decide if it was suitable or needed to be re-shot. John wondered when Jackson ever slept.

Today, John showed me the following sites: Fangorn Forest, both the exterior and interior shots; two scenes of the Anduil River (at entirely different locations involving entirely different bodies of water), including the scene where Frodo leaves the Fellowship and Sam wades out into the water after him; the setting for the scene where the riders of Rohan are burning the bodies of the orcs (the carbon from the fire can still be found on the ground), the battle scenes between the Fellowship and the orcs, including the spots where Frodo and Merry and Pippin hid.

Fangorn Forest
Fangorn Forest
Inside Fangorn Forest
Fangorn Forest interior
Merry's and Pippin's hiding place
Merry's and Pippin's hiding place
Lake
Location where Frodo tried to leave Sam behind

John also described the single scene in which he actually participated: Jackson wanted the illusion of the characters running through a thick forest, but the logistics of shooting the scene did not permit working in a dense forest. So John, out of range of the camera, held out two tree branches and shook them as the characters ran by. He kidded Jackson saying he wanted a credit in the film, but Jackson took him seriously. Jackson asked John what kind of credit he wanted, and John said, "Chief Branch Shaker". I asked John if he obtained the credit he requested; he shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't know because he never reads the credits. I resolved to watch for the credit the next time I view The Fellowship of the Ring. John did say he was mentioned in the acknowledgments of Ian Brodie's authoritative book on the locations where scenes from LotR were filmed. A view of Nen Hithoel also was part of the tour.

John also owns a poster from The Fellowship of the Ring featuring those two magnificent statues at the entrance to Gondor, autographed by Peter Jackson along with a nice note. John had mentioned that he would be retiring from the DOC soon, and Jackson sent the autographed poster as a gift for John at his retirement party. It's one of my favorite posters from the LotR trilogy, and I'm intensely jealous! It's hung in a prominent location in the hallway, so if it were to go missing, its absence would be noted quickly. Just kidding; I would never do anything like that, especially because my name isn't "John".

This evening I visited the renowned cave of glow worms located across the lake from Te Anau. This time I'm the one adding the superlative. Several guidebooks I had read said the glow worms were a must see, and I would have forgotten about it if John's wife, Aloma, hadn't mentioned it. I had no other plans for the evening, so I decided on the spur of the moment to go, and I'm really glad I did. The experience was quite magical.

We had to travel some distance into the cave, although we could see a few glow worms near the entrance of the cave. Once we had walked some distance into the cave, passing some impressive waterfalls (an entire waterway had gone underground into and through the cavern system), we boarded boats for the best part of the tour. By then our eyes had become adjusted to the darkness, and the darkness was absolute by this point in the tour. One could not see one's hand in front of one's face, even when it was held an inch away.

What could be seen, however, were the tiny little specks of green light covering the ceilings and walls of the cave. The cave looked like it was covered with minute green LEDs. The glow worms are not actually worms as such, but, rather, the larval form of a flying insect, and they secrete mucus in strands that look like strings of pearls. These strands capture insects. I asked the question afterwards, and learned that the glow worms are indeed cannibalistic. They are very territorial, and will fight a glow worm that invades its territory, with the victor consuming the loser. The intensity of the light is proportional to how hungry the larva is. These glow worms are unique to New Zealand, although Australia has a similar species.

As we were traveling by ship to and from the island where the glow worm cave was located, I regretted not bringing my camera along. I knew photography was not permitted in the cave, so I had left my camera behind; however, the journey to and from the cave, especially in the light of the Golden Hour prior to sunset, revealed some quite beautiful scenery of the Fiordland National Park. I may bring my camera tomorrow and just take the ferry ride out to the island and directly back as a photography adventure.

Even though it was a little after 9 pm after I returned, and I feared all of the restaurants would be closed at that late hour in the sleepy little town of Te Anau. To my pleasant surprise, however, the very Italian restaurant I most wanted to visit, Cafe La Dolce Vita, was still open. Both Te Anau and Wanaka draw a fair number of tourists, although not nearly to the degree as Queenstown, and visitors to these smaller towns tend to lean more towards the middle-aged crowd and older. This gives these towns an active night life, although nowhere nearly as frenetic as Queenstown.

I had a Carrick Sauvignon Blanc from the Otago Peninsula region of New Zealand. It was good but still not quite up to the standard set by the Amisfield Sauvignon Blanc. I had noticed a sign for the winery near Queenstown while traveling from Wanaka to Te Anau, so I may try to drop in before returning my rental car. I started with a dish I'd never had before, strangolopreti, which was spinach and parmesan dumplings with a fresh sage and butter sauce topped with shaved parmesan. For my main course I had penne primavera: penne pasta with roasted vegetables in a basil pesto sauce. Even though the penne primavera had been an enormous serving of food, I still had room for tiramisu for dessert along with a cup of cappuccino. Thus thoroughly sated, I drove back to the B&B and fell asleep even before I was able to complete this journal entry.

Gold rule

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