Discovering EdorasMiddle Earth aka Mt. Potts (Sunday), New Zealand

Edoras - AKA Mt. Sunday

New zealand is Middle Earth. It has been since Peter Jackson first started filming the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the late 1990’s. After being idle for a month or so, and with the day to day grind at work frustrating me, we decided we needed to get away and what better place to do so than in Tolkien's Middle Earth, it was right in our backyard afterall! We  knew about a tour, that could take you to Edoras, where the Fellowship hand out in The second film while Frodo and Samwise are away and being harrassed by Gollum, but it is quite expensive, and in our view not worth the money they were charging. We learned from locals; however, that was that it was quite possible to do the tour on your own. So off we went to discover Edoras of Middle Earth, or Mt. Potts/Sunday of New Zealand

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In Tolkien’s Middle Earth, Edoras is the part of the Kingdom of Rohan, it is a hilltop fort on top of shallow hill, which in New Zealand is known as Mt. Sunday in the Rangitata River Valley, and is part of the Hakatere Conservation Park. Mt. Sunday was given its name by a group of farmers that gathered there every Sunday for worship, feasting and drinking.  Parts of The Twin Towers were shot here. Including Edoras, the exterior shots for Helm's Deep, and the Uruk-hai march were also shot in the area. Our trip here one Saturday afternoon in June, would be our first foray into the magical realms of Middle Earth.

Mt. Potts is about two hours from Christchurch, and unlike many other drives around New Zealand, it is pretty straight driving to get there, no nausea involved. We stopped off at Lake Emma along the way, and drove past Mt. Somers, which has an amazing swinging bridge at the peak of a challenging hike. That though, would have to wait for another time.
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By this time of year the snow had fallen in the alps, though Winter was officially yet a few days away. We happened to pick the right day to visit, amid some of the worst rain showers Canterbury had seen for thirty or so years we had a full day of relative dryness. The Tuesday after we visited, it rained for 36 hours straight!

It was not sunny, but it didn’t matter the views were still incredible, and it made the mood more reminiscent of the real Middle Earth. There were a lot of low lying clouds, mist and fog hanging at a wide variety of altitudes. It was as if goblins, and orcs could be just over the horizon.

Mt. Sunday - Post LOTR, as it looks today.

Once we arrived at the base of Mt. Sunday, we followed the trail across the pastures, which were filled with Middle Earthen cattle of a local farmer, and then across a waterway known locally as Deep Creek. From there it was about 150m up hill to the summit of Mt. Sunday, which itself was in the middle of a plain surrounded 270 degrees by other southern Alpine mountains, among them Mt Potts, and Mt. Sumner. The view from the top revealed a wild mountainous river valley sprinkled with tussocks, and on this day a hazy mist, which obscured parts of the landscape. The meandering Deep creek, which as a result of the recent rains, was flowing a fairly good pace. We had the place almost to ourselves, one of the official Edoras tours, was just ahead of us, and few others trailing, but otherwise it was us and the mountains. The hike was a refreshing excursion, and the only hiccups was the slightly muddy slopes that needed to be navigated with care, but ultimately were no trouble even for Aurora.

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