Discover New Zealand, Home of Middle Earth
	Wednesday, Day 10. It is a frosty morning in Te Anau, and we are without electric heat because our power coupler circuit breaker is broken. While it is being replaced, we have breakfast beside Lake Te Anau park where the water is so crystal clear that the ducks swimming on it seem to be suspended in space. The mountains in the background are home to the Glowworm Caves, which we would have liked to visit, but we didn't know how to get there and back in time.
	With a new circuit breaker, we head toward Manapouri along the Waiau River to the view of the Anduin river where the men and hobbits left Lothlorien and headed toward the Pillars of the Argonath and the Emyn Muil, followed secretly by Gollum. We hike through the brush and all at once, there the river is before us. The Kepler Track adjacent to it is very quiet, and is reminiscent of the wilds of Ithilien, or perhaps the Old Forest or old forest road through Mirkwood.
	We return to Te Anau and head back toward Queenstown as far as Kakapo Road to the location of Fangorn Forest. This is a dark and spooky place where Merry and Pippin meet Treebeard; and Legolas, Gimli and Aragorn meet Gandalf the White. The location needs no enhancement for the film; you can almost hear the trees talk to each other, shepherded by the oldest of all speaking beings, the ents. It gives the definite impression of immense age, with moss and fungi all around. In the book, the whole forest moves down into Rohan, but the film hasn't reached that point, yet. "Fangorn" is the elvish name that translates into "Treebeard" in the language of men.
	A view of the edge of Fangorn Forest at a different location can be seen from the orc mound, where the Riders of Rohan killed and cremated the orcs after Merry and Pippin escaped into Fangorn. I am standing on the spot marked by Ian Brodie, and noting that the mound was "right here." From there I could track the hobbits' trail, as Aragorn did, into the forest. I know this is the right place because there are still half-buried "orc skulls" sticking out of the ground, their exposed crowns bleached by the sun.
	Every filming location we went, we found trails of footprints of other presumed hobbit-philes. This is the first time we met a real person. Mina is a gutsy little Japanese girl we found driving around all alone with Ian Brodie's book trying to find the orc mound. With my GPS, I was able to convince her that we had found the exact spot. Since she spoke very little English, and I spoke no Japanese, this was not easy. Later Mina and Stefanie had their pictures taken inside the forest where Treebeard stomped the orc that wanted to eat the hobbits..
	Turning north, we drove along the Mararoa River to North Mavora Lake, the site of Nen Hithoel and the breaking of the Fellowship. I am standing on the spot where Aragorn built the campfire while Boromir gathered firewood and tried unsuccessfully to take the Ring from Frodo. Later Boromir repented of his madness and died heroically trying (in vain) to defend the hobbits against the Uruk Hai. Adjacent to the beach is the wooded area where the orcs attacked and killed Boromir and kidnapped Merry and Pippin, and from which Aragorn urged Legolas and Gimli to "lets hunt some orc!" I found the exact stump the hobbits hid behind before they jumped out and led the Uruk Hai away from Frodo and Sam, but it was so dark the pictures didn't turn out.
	Stefanie wanted to have her picture taken in this tree, so I obliged. Next, she is standing on the spot where Sam waded out into the lake and almost drowned until he was rescued by Frodo. The film neglects the fact that this was a courageous act for both of the hobbits, since neither of them could swim (few hobbits could) and both of Frodo's parents had been drowned in the Brandywine River when he was little, which is why he lived with Bilbo. Incidentally, Frodo calls him "Uncle Bilbo" in the film, but Frodo's maternal grandmother was in fact Bilbo's Aunt Mirabella, and Frodo's paternal great, great (Baggins) grandparents were Bilbo's paternal great grandparents, so Frodo and Bilbo were actually cousins, first and second, "once removed either way," as the saying goes.
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