Pat took off this morning for an excursion on the "Lord of the Rings Scenic Tour." Apparently, many locales for the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed in the Christchurch area. She took her phone camera, so we should have a bunch of really nice pics to see, if we can find a way to down load them.
I spent the day in Christchurch area visiting the local HD dealer, where I bought a T-Shirt. I should be the only kid on my block with a shirt from New Zealand...maybe. The next stop was the Canterbury Museum in downtown Christchurch. This structure is another 19-century masonry structure, but in the 1990's it was "quake-proofed" and damage due to the big earthquake was minimal. It also abuts the Botanic Gardens and is really beautiful.
Inside, there were a lot of exhibits about the early inhabitants of New Zealand, the Maori, who didn't arrive until the 13th century, contrary to the native inhabitants of Australia. There was also a lot of information about the early settlers in the Christchurch area. Whaling was a major activity along the coast of New Zealand and these are a pair of kettles used to boil whale blubber to render the oil:
There were some examples of early settlers' cabins from the mid-1800's:
Pretty tight quarters!
There was also a lot of information about various Antarctic Exploration Voyages from 1900 to the mid-1960's that were quite interesting. This is a motorized Sledge that was used by Shackelford in 1914:
This is a SnowCat used in the first expedition to cross the entire continent of Antarctica in 1957:
After visiting the museum, I walked through the Botanic Gardens. This is a fountain that is just outside the museum itself:
This is a shot of the Rose Garden. In the background is a Victorian-era greenshouse that is now closed due to quake damage:
The gardens were just beautiful.
After this, I went to the Yardhurst Transportation Museum near the Christchurch airport. This was moderately interesting. I talked to the owner, and the museum dates to the 1950's and was developed by his father. There were several exhibits and some of it was interesting, though. Here is a shot of some of the cars in the museum:
After leaving Yardhurst, I headed over to the Air Museum of New Zealand. They had a number of interesting displays, but nothing that I haven't seen before. After that, I went to the Ferrymead Heritage Park in Ferrymead. This is a restored village set up as it would have been around 1900 and is pretty nicely done. Here is a pic of the Main Street:
The Heritage Center had a lot of interesting exhibits. There were probably 25 or so buildings that were restored with 1900-era furnishings and other period memorabilia and those were well done. They also have a facility where they restore old streetcars, including streetcars that were damaged in the Christchurch earthquake. This is one of the streetcars in the repair shop. It's had its body removed and they are refurbishing the frame:
And this is what they look like when they're restored:
This is John, the pilot of the streetcar. He took me around the whole route (all 1 mile or so of it) and through the repair shops:
John actually let me drive the streetcar for the entire trip back...with a lot of direction from him. Must have been a slow day at the park but it made my day.
Anyway, that was today. Tomorrow, we're headed inland to Lake Takepo up in the mountains to the southwest.
Pat's Paragraph......I have been to Middle Earth and returned! If you have seen the LOTR movies, this is the site of Edoras, the capital city of Rohan. This is a very rural area with mostly sheep stations and large area ranches with a lot of cattle. They also raise deer here for commercial purposes so we passed some very large herds of what they call 'red deer'. New Zealand allowed the filming with the understanding that when the filming was completed, all had to be put back the way it was before the filming. And boy they did! They even had plowed a road for trucks and large cargo haulers, to carry in building materials, food for huge amounts of people, over 200 horses, costumes, even potties. Well you can't even tell there was a road. It all looks natural and untouched. The city had fences, stables, cottages, other buildings, roads and of course the huge Hall where the king lived. It took 8 months to build all of this and there isn't a trace left. Pictures taken at 'movie time' were shown to us and you could compare them to the 'now'. We got to handle the swords and the battle ax that were used in the film. The surrounding mountain tops were all snow covered and ringed the entire valley. No wonder Peter Jackson choose this location. ( I hope we can down load the pictures for you.)
