We took our time driving to Te Anau (our base for the bus trip to Milford Sound) from Omakau. First, we stopped at the Roaring Meg stream along the Kawarau River. The Kiwis have taken advantage of the forceful current in the stream by setting up a hydroelectric power plant. As it gushes out from the plant to the river, all you can see is white water. The force of the stream joining the river causes strong undercurrents along the far bank, where the rock wall continues vertically down past the surface for several meters. We also saw an information board that told us that the Department of Conservation (DOC) was killing "weed trees" that had been planted to provide lumber for houses, etc. Unfortunately, the trees also overtook land originally occupied by brown tussock grasses and other low-lying shrubs, choking them off. By killing the unwelcome trees, the DOC was restoring the landscape to its native state, which will help sustain deer and other browsing animals.
Next, we drove up the Kawarau Gorge a few km to an historic suspension bridge similar to the one at Ophir. However, this bridge also added another nugget of history in 1988 when A. J. Hackett began commercial bungy jumping from this bridge (http://www.bungy.co.nz/kawarau-bungy-centre/kawarau-bungy). We certainly didn't stop to take the leap; rather, we just wanted to see the bridge and get a different view of the Gorge from the center of the river. But we couldn't help watching crowds of people lining up to take the 47-meter plunge. Definitely not for the faint of heart!
Finally, we stopped in Arrowtown to check out a couple of Lord of the Rings (LOTR) sites. The first was the site for Gladden Fields, where Isildur was killed during the prologue in the first movie. We had to use our imagination as the scenes were filmed in winter when the trees were bare (compared to the fully leafed out specimens we saw). The other site was the Ford of Bruinen, where Eowyn protected Frodo from the Black Riders. The Arrow River spread out across several meters and it was much easier to visualize this movie scene.
We polished off our tuna fish sandwiches for lunch before walking around Arrowtown (mostly a collection of tourist shops). We tried to find another LOTR site at Deer Park Heights, but there were no signs. We checked on the Internet after arriving at Te Anau and discovered that public access had been discontinued about 2009 as the owners no longer wanted to have all that disruption in their lives (http://www.bestlordoftheringstours.com/queenstown-lord-of-the-rings-tours/deer-park-lord-of-the-rings-tour/). That was too bad as there were some GREAT scenes shot up ther (notably the Rohirrim refugees moving from Edoras to Helms Deep). This is what happens when you keep using the 2005 guidebook instead of buying an updated one! We continued another couple of hours down to Te Anau to rest up for tomorrow's tour of Milford Sound.
