Queenstown - White water rafting and Dear Park Heights

White water rafting

On the 7th of March, we felt like doing one of the many “extreme” sports that were offer in Queenstown so we decided to go white water rafting! This was down Skippers Canyon and we both had an awesome time! This was the third time for me but Fem’s first time. I initially was worried that they might not have a wet suit large enough for me. But that was no problem. They just didn’t have any red jumpers big enough but they said it was not a problem so away we went! Most of the main rapids were either grade 3 or 4 so it was not overly rough. The guide we had on the back of our boat was really good, and all the other people in our raft were rugby players! Everyone was really good at paddling to get us to where we needed to go as indicated by the guide. We did have to really hold on and watch ourselves a few times during the choppy parts, but mostly it was an extremely scenic float down a freezing river! All in all it was a good day!

Deer Park Heights

On the 8th of March, we went to Deer Park Heights. This is basically a huge hill just outside of Queenstown. So what’s special about it? It’s where scenes from the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers were filmed. Specifically the Warg battle, and the refugees fleeing Edoras. Even for non-LOTR geeks it is a stunning place to take photos and where you can feed all sorts of animals that are in different areas on the deer farm.

There is the scene from the movie where the refugees were fleeing Edoras.

Here is it when we visited it that day. (the lake has less water which was a little bit of a shame)

Here is the spot where Aragorn is dragged off the cliff at the end of the Warg battle.

The rest of the hill top had a very “Rohan” like feel to it. There was a section with a stunning view where there were lots of goats just milling around and waiting to get free food from all the tourists who stopped by!

Awesome background. How could you NOT have a photo of yourself taken here! It was such a wonderful day weather wise too. :)

One of the many deer on the hill. Femke took this photo and I think it’s a good one! We also fed some Alpaca’s in one section of the park. This particular one below sneezed on me. I ended up with some partly chewed nutty pellets splattered on my jumper. Poor Fem nearly did some damage just laughing at me! It was a good way to spend most of a day (as long as the weather was great!).