After leaving Wellington, we were heading for Castlepoint. But on the way was the set of Rivendell from the Lord of the Rings movies. Since I am a pretty big fan, of course we had to stop by. After first stopping by a water reservoir with a great view, we took the turn off to the park.
Once we got there it turned out to just be a patch of forest. There was nothing there apart from a sign saying They filmed here! A little disappointing really. We got some shots and you tell me… Do we look like we are in the gardens of the elvish place Rivendell?
There were some nature walks nearby and they were pretty good. On of the paths near to a river which was an incredible transparent green colour.
Once we were done there, it was a case of driving over the mountain range to the east coast. This involved a lot of winding roads and great views as you can see.
Then once we got to the coast we were at Castlepoint. Since we started over a week ago, we had been in cabins or spare bedrooms, and we felt we should be in a tent again. When we arrived at the only holiday park in town we said “We want a tent site”. They looked at us as if we were crazy. “A tent site? In winter? Are you sure?”.
“Yeah we want to keep costs down”
So we ended up on the edge of a cliff overlooking Castlepoint itself. It has to be one of the BEST views ever from a tent site we have had so far.
After setting up our tent, I was able to get this evening panorama of Castlepoint itself with the sun fully on it. It came out well!
We were a little worried about the wind given we were on the edge of an exposed cliff. But we certain we would be right and settled in for the first of two nights there. Little did we know it would be a looong night…
