-
W
O
R
D
S

Strange Happenings on Mt. Victoria
Sam

Lord of the Rings crew were filming in the forest again today. I live on Mt
Victoria, where if you remember they shot the scene where the Hobbits hide
from the Ringwraith behind the tree stump. Well, this evening I looked out my
window and saw smoke spiriling up from the woods and decided to go and check it out. Ambling my way down the path i stumbled accross a security guard who didn't say much as I kept walking by... only to find a whole bunch of people on four-wheel motorbikes and what looked like a group of people down the bank filming.

A little nervous and worried about being chased off the set I went
back down the path and asked if they were filming LOTR... to which the answer was yes. So I crept around the back and scaled a tree and feeling even a little elf like I hid myself in the depths of Middle-earth to see what I could see. As it happened, I must have got there a little too late because people were beginning to pack things up... so I climbed down from the tree eventually and sat down near the bank on which they were filming.

No matter what happens with this film regarding content I gaurantee that you'll at least find it visually astounding. The trees were exactly as I imagined them. The sun had just gone down behind the hill and shadows were creeping through the forest. Branches were spiky... the bark appeared a dark browny-grey set against the deep green of the undergrowth. I'm going to have to return with a camera because the scenery was beautiful. Exactly as I imagined the forests of Middle-earth.

Reluctantly I made way back home -- had to get my washing off the line before it got damp, but when my neighbour informed me that there was a bright light coming up from the forest, she, my flatmate and I decided to see what we could find out. It was sort of difficult to find our way over the paths in the middle of the night... even with torches, but eventually we made it to the set where they'd been earlier in the day.

A very bright light was shining and we sat on the edge of a sloping bank above where they were in the shadows of the trees and did our best to figure out what was going on. Our spying can't have been that brilliant because some guy with a flashlight spotted us a couple of times but didn't come to talk to us. Guess he figured we weren't going to do any harm. The trees and bushes obscured most of our vision but we could make out a female voice saying "roll camera", cut" and "one more time." The rest of the conversation was hard to pick up and I couldn't figure anything out. Eventually they began to pack up and we decided to return home. I'm gonna buy film and get up there to take photos as soon as I can.