We had to drive 40 minutes out into the
country to pick up the plane because the owner of the company had flown
it there when he was too lazy just to drive his car.
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We got pretty close to some of the snow
covered peaks. With all the recent rain, they had about a meter of
fresh snow in the last few days.
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That meter of snow on the peaks translates to
a lot of rain on the hillsides, and that caused some flooding and road
washouts that we encountered on our way into town. Here you can
see the chocolate brown water from the flooded stream mixing with the
deep blue lake water.
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Just like every other inch of New Zealand,
there was some LOTR filming that the locals had seen. This bit of
sheep paddock was used for some horse chase scene with "hundreds of
horses" according to our pilot. He said the airspace over the
paddock was off-limits during filming, but that just made the locals fly
low in circles over the area to see what they could see. A local
paper called this the site of the "Flight to the Ford" scene where
Arwen is chased by the black riders.
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And here's just another typical view of
mountains and streams and lakes, yada yada yada. Actually just
after this shot, I started concentrating less on photographs and more on
not getting airsick. I had to tell the pilot to cut out all the
steep turns and dives.
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