Putangirua Pinnacles

'The way is blocked. It was laid by those who are dead and the dead hold it. The way is blocked.'

A quote that will definitely sound familiar to the fans among us, and for the others I simply recommend to watch the Lord of the Rings movies again. ;) And if you don't want to do that, you can still read this post and admire the nature and the rocks themselves.

After I left Rivendell, I went straight to the Putangirua Pinnacles. Once there, I prepared a portion of my extraordinarily delicious noodle carbonara, which I had prepared the day before in the gardens of Isengard, and enjoyed it under the sun. Since the weather was quite nice and the timing was perfect, I spontaneously decided to take a little hike to the Pinnacles.

The hike starts through the wide creek bed, where only a narrow stream flows, and then branches off onto a path through the forest or rather through the jungle, leading to the viewpoint of the Pinnacles. The track is really nice to walk and takes you slowly but surely up a few elevation meters for a perfect view.

From the observation platform, I then went down a quite steep and not very well-maintained path to the dry creek bed, and from there I continued to hike 'upstream' to see the Pinnacles directly from below and to visit the location where the Lord of the Rings was filmed. On the way, I also found a few very funny-looking mushrooms.

In the creek bed, I amusingly ran into a few familiar faces that I had also met a few hours earlier in Rivendell. Among them was a Frenchman who was driving around various filming locations of the Lord of the Rings and other films in New Zealand in his rental camper. Especially at the filming spots that are in the middle of nowhere, it's always great to chat with the fans and to see how much the films have excited people all over the continent and what these films have done for tourism in New Zealand.

The more rocky paths I covered, the more I felt like Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas searching for the ghosts. And besides the nerdy aspect in this trip, it was really cool to see what other rock formations nature has to offer and how they are also exposed to the elements.

On the signs all over New Zealand, you can always see the best marketing action in Germany:

Then it was back across the entire creek bed to Fridolin-Christopher, and slowly but surely off to bed. During the quick snack before sleeping, I also enjoyed the view of the sunset.

That night was my first night on the North Island, where I spent the night in the middle of nowhere, and unfortunately, I have to say that it wasn't really a good night. When I crawled into bed, I thought another camper would also be staying at the site right by the Pinnacles, but when I went to the bathroom again, I realized that I was completely alone at the site, which made me feel quite uncomfortable. It was also a pretty windy night, meaning that Fridolin was shaken regularly, and due to my restlessness, I didn't really sleep well. When it got light at 7 in the morning, I managed to sleep for about an hour before I started my way to the northwest of the island after a quick muesli, as my next major stop was Mount Taranaki and New Plymouth.

Since I was already on the road a bit earlier due to my bad night, I also caught sight of the sea lions still sleeping. Pretty funny, as they just sleep in the middle of the road due to the proximity to the sea. So I had to swerve around the seals.

And what stops I made on the way to the northwest, I will report to you in the next post.

Until then, lots of love,
Your Britta