My fellowship / travelling stories: NZ: Lord of the Rings and tranzAlpine train

My brother and I spent a bit of time traveling by ourselves. We went on Hassle Free tours to go to Edoras, the capital city of Rohan, which translates to Mt Sunday in Mt Potts high station area. It is a great tour, my brother's favourite part of New Zealand. Both of us are not Lord of the Rings fanatics, but this tour took us to the middle of nowhere in South Island and the weather was cooperating, so the scenery was gorgeous.

So for those who are not LOTR fans either, this is part of the second movie, the Two Towers, where Aragon, Legolas, Gandolf and Gimli went to Edoras to warn King Theoden. They have the Golden Hall constructed on that hill in the middle of the picture which is on private land. They had to construct a road up to the hill, and also a nursery for the vegetation on the top of the hill to be transferred to the bottom. It is easy to see why the film costs so much to make!

Edoras

Sword of Aragon

Flag of Rohan

We went on the TranzAlpine train from Christchurch to Greymouth. It was one of the world's best train ride and it was definitely popular as all the seats were filled. For NZ$138 you can stay on board for 4 hours and travel through the Southern Alps to the West coast. There were two stops, one at Springbrook and one at Arthurs Pass. We took the train over and the bus back to Christchurch, as it was a cheaper option. It also went through areas that were not covered by the train. While we were at Greymouth, we took a tour up to Punakaiki to see the Pancake Rocks and the Blowholes. However the tide was out so there weren't any blowholes to see but we could walk far out on the coast. The Pancake Rocks were neat but overall there really isn't much over at Greymouth.