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NZ On The Web
Mt. Ruapheu

Trip to Mordor and Back
Jonny Grindlay

On Tuesday I travelled up to Mt Ruapehu and to the LOTR filming.

First of all I went up toward the Rangipo Desert where I had been told that there was a set being built a while ago. There was a Jamb Unit sign pointing up at the New Zealand Army Base Head Quarters. Further down the road (about 5 mins) there was an entrance to an Army training area that had Jamb signs stuck in the ground. There was a sign that said "1b 10km" so I took a few photos and went off to check out the next site. I went off down there and saw some more Jamb signs and a tent set up with vans and jeeps and truck trailers all around I got a photo of that. Then I headed around to Mt Ruapehu. On the way I saw a truck drive past with tent poles and canvas in the back of it. I went past the Chateau and went to the Info centre. The lady there said that the LOTR filming up there had finished. I thought we should go try anmd find out where exactly they were filming anyway. It was getting a bit late so we headed off to find some where to stay. I ended up staying at a lodge place ten minutes from the mountain. The owner there said that they had had a stunt crew staying there for 3 weeks that had been working with LOTR and she said that there were still three of them there. One of them had a Bedford Van and another of them had a jeep that had a flat tyre by the looks of things.

Things were a bit quite for a while but at about 8:30pm the guy with the van started packing his things into the van I spotted a security pass hanging around his neck, Anyway he drove off.

In the morning we checked out and went up to the mountain. I spotted a few big containers in the car park. I walked down to the rocks and started looking for where I thought that the filming took place in. Soon I found an area up on a clearance up above the skifield that had lots of footprints that had been made recently. As the ski season doesn't start till July I thought that that would definately have something to do with LOTR so I looked around. I saw bits of duct tape and cigarette buts and fresh apple cores. I also found where a tripod had been because there were 3 dents in the ground in a triangle shape. and also found a little part of a tripod.

Also I found a piece of ... guess what!! A piece of what appears to be Uruk-Hai armour. I have a stange habit of finding stuff after filming has finished.

I'll send you a photo of it as soon as I can.

I keep looking around and clambered up to another clearence and saw a path that had been cleared out and there was native plants that had been moved to make way for the path. The was also a container that was open and I could see material sttuf inside I managed to snap a photo from long distance as there were two guys there waiting for the truck to come and pick up the container.