The Gollum Hotel, or Why does That Possum have a Rifle?

 

February 8th

Near Greymouth

South Island, New Zealand

On February 7th, we stayed at an Airbnb in Greymouth, a welcome change from camping. 

HOKITIKA

When I was a girl in elementary school, I would always look for pretty rocks on the way home, and I'm sure I had quite a collection (which my mother probably disposed of secretly when I wasn't thinking about it because I don't remember ever seeing a such a collection). 

And anyway, we are packrats, so now we are collecting pretty rocks!

On our way from Greymouth, we stopped on the beach in Hokitika, which is famous for Greenstone Jade. In Maori, it’s called Pounamu and is considered a treasure for its durability and beauty. It was used for tools and ornaments.

We’d stopped at the beach briefly the night before, so this was our second trip to the Hokitika beach.

My video on the beach, introducing the Greenstone

 

 

We spent a little time looking for greenstone jade, after watching some youtube videos on how to find them.

I got soaking wet from the knees down because the waves were a little wild and came in faster than I expected.

Me on the beach. https://youtu.be/utX9SVs9m7k

We collected a bagful of treasures. Not all of them looked like jade, and we weren’t sure any of them really were jade. A few of them I just picked because they were pretty.

My video where I show the rocks I found (mostly quartz). In the end, after consulting a friend, and I'm pretty sure that none of them are Greenstone jade. But still, I'll keep some because they are pretty.

 

Video link Youtube 

Did I Find Any Pounamu Jade? 

https://youtube.com/shorts/xyW0A6LC270?si=5XQC01h_SHZSHGYZ

HEADING FOR CHRISTCHURCH

After the beach, we headed through Arthur’s Pass and on our way to Christchurch. Thus we drove from the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand to the east coast in one day.

ARTHUR’S PASS

In Maori, Arthur’s pass is known as: Ka tiriti o te Moana. (which means “steep peak of glistening white”)

We walked around in Arthur’s Pass Village, which had a lot of signposts telling about how the town was settled and various buildings in it.

Near Arthur’s Pass

Stopped for a picnic lunch, sandwiches around 1 pm.

 

 

OTIRA STAGECOACH HOTEL

Or as I call it: "The Gollum Hotel". 

At some point, after lunch, as we were driving along, I could swear I'd just seen a giant Gollum on the roof of a hotel we'd passed. I had Khevron stop and we turned around and went back for a second look and sure enough--it was a giant Gollum!

 

We'd found the Otira Stagecoach Hotel, which was this really wacky old hotel with all sorts of interesting and unique things--it could have been a museum.

 

 

Driftwood Horse

Gandalf and a driftwood dragon

Really old cars! 

 

 

1524  Other odd bits.

Tin Man  

Tin Man on his bike?

Killer Jurassic Rhino, possibly possessed?

 

 Stagecoaches

 

The Tin Man and his beer wagon?

 The dinning room 

In the restaurant, a dining table, and lots of books ...

 

 Lots of stuffed animals. Including the creepy little rats that were sitting in chairs Why? And one important question came to my mind—why does that possum have a rifle? 

 

 

Why does that Possum have a Rifle.

Rats relaxing in Rocking Chairs.

Really not sure what to do with some of this.

 The fireplace was cozy. 

 

An actual fire in the fireplace.

And they have an ogre for a bar tender? Nice.

 

The Ogre bartender

More taxidermy.

Natural selection...

 

And a giant collection of old farm equipment.

 

 And you thought we were pack rats! 

Lareena at "Gollum Hotel"

 

 That wraps up our visit to the Gollum Hotel. We didn't actually stay there, just passed it on our way to Arthur's Pass & Castle Hill.

 

Link: 

On the way to Arthur's Pass

LOTR Sites: The Argonath & Bungie Jumping

February 6th

South Island, New Zealand

We had stayed a couple of nights in Queenstown, in an RV park.

 

 

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The next day, we had one more LOTR site to see on the way out and that is the Argonath, known as the King’s Pillars, which are the majestic, huge statues of Isildur and Elendil, on the river which marked the border of Gondor.

On google maps, it lists “The Argonath” so we drove out to that exact spot on Chard Road, overlooking the Kawarau River. We knew we were on the right trail when we saw two LOTR fans, one dressed in a cape.

 

But we just couldn’t see how this river was the same as in the movie, and the spot on the map marked “Argonath” just didn’t seem to be the right spot.

Of course, those statues aren’t there. And secondly, they manipulated the area around the statues to make it look like huge slabs of rock were cut out of the mountain. And that wasn’t real. But there was a windy, rocky river.

Khevron looked online and said that supposedly they started shooting at the suspension bridge and went downriver from there. So we went to the Kawarau Suspension Bridge.

 

Since it was lunch, we had to have a meat pie.

You can bungie jump from the bridge for 320 New Zealand dollars. Eeep, no thank you. So we took pictures from the bridge and tried to imagine two Argonath there. And yes, you can imagine it.

After that, we headed north where we would camp at Lake Paringa. But on the way we would pass one more LOTR filming site, and that was looking across Lake Wanaka at Mount Aspiring. Supposedly, those snowy peaks were filmed up there.

We stopped at the lake and looked. The view was very beautiful, but not very snowy, so it was hard to see the similarity.