The Road to Paradise

The Road to Paradise, Glenorchy, New Zealand

Here’s a quick holiday picture post to keep the blog going. I’ve meant to write this post a year ago, when my dad and Auckland sis’s family finally visited Queenstown in the South Island of New Zealand last January. They went looking for scenes of Middle Earth (from the Lord of the Rings movie which was filmed in NZ), as well as the well-known attractions around. Here is our own journey to this part of ‘Middle Earth’ in December 2018.

I had no idea where the Lord of the Ring's Isengard or Lothlorien's location was. It wasn’t marked on Google Maps at that time (I think), or I just hadn’t researched enough, before flying over to Queenstown and renting a campervan. I just knew that some of the LOTR scenes were shot in the Glenorchy area at the northern end of Lake Wakatipu where Queenstown was. I noticed a place named Paradise to the north of Glenorchy. That’s it! What better place to go, than Paradise??? The scenery there must be beautiful, judging from the name. (I bet you, the first residents to Greenland were conned just like that). We were also incidentally looking for a camping spot for our campervan, and Glenorchy has one (didn’t fancy staying inside Queenstown. …What? Hire a campervan, and stay inside a town? What the heck?!?)

This post is actually a continuation of our 2018 campervan adventure in NZ's South Island. We had visited Milford Sound and the Fiordland National Park, and had put up a night at Mossburn on our return trip to Queenstown. (Click on the links, if you wanna see what we were up). Here’re the pictures of our journey from Mossburn back to Queenstown and onwards. Paradise, here we come!


We’re back on the shores of Lake Wakatipu! Ahead is the Devil’s Staircase Lookout Point. (Don’t ask me why it’s called the Devil’s Staircase, I didn’t see any signs of any staircases. Maybe it refers to the road)


The Devil’s Staircase (that’s what it says on Google Maps), Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown, NZ


The shores of Lake Wakatipu! Is this Isengard? Beats me. I don’t think so. Isengard is a friggin tower on a flat land, surrounded by mountains, not in a lake. (And I bet you, it’s a CGI tower). But what the heck, the views here are fantastic, better than any Isen-friggin-gard


Lake Wakatipu, on the Queenstown-Glenorchy Road, just north of Creighton (thanks Google Maps)


Approaching Glenorchy, just next to Glenorchy’s Airport. (What? Glenorchy has an airport??? That’s what is sez on Google Maps. I think it’s a small one, probably for crop dusters and small planes…)


Shite, the road to Paradise sure is bumpy. It ain’t a tarred road. Let’s go a few more kilometres on this and if we don’t see anything, we’d turn back, OK? Don’t wanna shake all the nuts and bolts out of the rented campervan! The photo showed the limit of where we went, before we turned back towards Glenorchy. It’s near Earnslaw village on the Glenorchy-Paradise Road. Studying Google Maps now, showed that the mountain in the photo above, is Mount Earnslaw, and those forests at the foot was where Lothlorien was filmed. Heck, they have the location marked on Google Maps now. I’m sure it wasn’t there in 2018. A few more kilometres, and we would have been in Lothlorien and after that, Paradise. But what the heck, it’ll just be a forest, wouldn’t it? Besides, we had to get back to town to look for a camping spot


Glenorchy! Mrs Wooley’s General Store


Mrs Wooley’s Campground. Heck, the campground’s full! (The problem with travelling in December in NZ, is that it’s peak season and everything is either full, or amazingly overpriced, especially if you’ve not booked in advance). It was a near last-minute trip for us, because we weren’t sure that we could get an NZ visa for Anu in the first place. (Yup, it was my fault 😔.) The visa came on the very day of our flight from Dubai to Auckland!! Thank God!


Leaving Glenorchy, and heading back to Queenstown. The location of this photo is near a place marked on Google Maps as 'Little Middle Earth', a landscape designer office…


No luck in Queenstown, let’s head to Arrowtown. There’s a campground there too, but the app (or was it a website) that we used to check camping grounds (maybe CamperMate? or Rankers? I forgot) says that’s full. No harm driving there and checking it out. Shite, full as well. They said we could freedom camp on the Crown Range Summit. (Freedom camping is when you camp on public land that isn’t a recognised camping ground or holiday park). We had no choice, let’s do that. The view in the photo above is from the Arrow Junction Lookout Point on our way to the Crown Range Summit


Whew, made it! Crown Range Summit car park, our camping spot for the night. Brrr, it’s cold and windy (it’s a summit, what d’ya expect? ...But it's Summer!)


Time to try out the campervan’s cooking equipment! And the portable toilet. Etc, etc, etc. We’ve so far been spending nights in paid campgrounds or holiday parks which are equipped with shared kitchens, bathrooms and laundrettes. So, we haven’t really got a chance to try out all the things in the campervan. Hey, it has a fridge, wash basin, stove, etc, everything we need (except a shower). Cool! “But kids, don’t waste water, OK?” “Gotta fill it up with fresh water the next time we get to a filling station, and gotta empty the waste tanks” (All the paid campgrounds have this I think, or you could go to a dump station, which is a place where you throw your waste water away). In campervan terminology, waste water is called grey water. And sewage is black water! And no, you can’t throw this anywhere you like. Only in approved dump stations! Or you’d get a big fine and banned from camping for eternity (I made that up. I don’t actually know)


We survived the night!! View from the Crown Range Summit car park, of Lake Wakatipu and Queenstown below


Bye-bye “Weathertop Hill”. Weathertop is a hill in the Lord of the Rings story and movie, but the Crown Range Summit isn't the location where they filmed it. The name just got stuck in my head because of the blustery weather at that place. See ya in Wanaka (where we were headed to next)!