While eating North Island Sarah’s pancakes in Dunedin on Friday morning, Iowa Mitchell and I decided to spend the weekend in Queenstown, so we walked to the edge of Dunedin an hour after making our decision and stuck our thumbs out. Three rides later — many thanks to a prison psychologist from Te Anau, an MIT climatologist from Queenstown, and a German tourist whose knowledge of California primarily concerned the quality of its marijuana — we found ourselves in the Adventure Capital of the World. (Seriously. Google “adventure capital of the world, and you’ll see the majority of the hits have “Queenstown” in their url.)
When we got to Queenstown, it was Food Time. Which is a bit of an unnecessary statement, because it’s always Food Time. Regardless, we decided to eat the best burger on the planet. It was really good, but not the best. I think that place in McCall, Idaho is still the best I’ve ever had.
We still had plenty of daylight left after that, so we took a short hike up to a hill overlooking the town, then rode the gondola down. I think you’re supposed to pay to ride it, but nobody checks if you’re going downhill because they assume you wouldn’t be crazy enough to have walked up it. Or perhaps they just think you deserve a free ride down if you put in the work to go up.
Looking down the gondola slope from the restaurant/gift shop at the top.
Queenstown, Lake Wakitipu, and the Remarkables.
Closeup of the Remarkables. Look familiar?
I’d like to go back in the winter and take a picture when it looks more like this scene from Two Towers.
Most hobbits are made out of cells. Frodo is made out of Jelly Belly beans.
Looking back on my pictures, I realize I should have taken more of all the LotR tourist stuff. Those movies created an entire industry in Queenstown. The entire town is full of stuff related to the trilogy, and all this more than ten years after the last movie came out. You could even buy an action figure of Peter Jackson in his RotK cameo as the unlucky Corsair whom Legolas shoots in the extended edition. I would have been tempted if not for the price.
We stayed in a backpackers hostel that night, and the next morning, Mitchell got up early and went bungee jumping. I elected not to go because I want to go kayaking in the fiords at some point, and that is expensive. So I slept in and walked around Queenstown and her gardens during the morning while Mitchell jumped off a bridge.
Looking west across Wakitipu. That cloud of smoke in the distance marks the location of the TSS Earnslaw.
Queenstown Gardens.
Once Mitchell finished his jump, we set out toward a couple of key Lord of the Rings locations. The walk was longer than we thought, but well worth it. First up, Amon Hen.
Queenstown Hill (907m) on the far left, Remarkables (2324m) in the center-left, Cecil Peak (1974m) in the center-right, and Walter Peak (1815m) on the far right.
The angle is a little off, but it’s the best I could find. Point is, I stood where Aragorn stood right before he took on an entire army of Uruk-hai.
Better view of the Earnslaw, this time accompanied by a kayaker. Like the Katahdin, it’s named after a nearby mountain.
A few kilometers after Amon Hen, we hit up Ithilien, and I immediately regretted not bringing potatoes. This spot wasn’t particularly scenic, but it was recognizable, and that’s what mattered.
This picture is officially dedicated to Greg Krathwohl.
It’s an oliphant! No one at home will believe this.
I sat and ate an apple at the spot where Frodo crawls out onto the ledge, 0:15-0:23 in the clip:
Once we got our fill — Mitchell is as big a LotR guy as I am — we went back to the road and, not feeling up to the walk back, stuck out our thumbs and got picked up by the first car that saw us. We spent that night in another hostel in Queenstown and hitched back to Dunedin the next morning.
Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost 
dig the Katahdin shoutout