New Zealand, Travel

Deer Park Heights New Zealand – Rohan

We visited Deer Park Heights, a phenomenal working farm with gorgeous views of Queenstown and The Remarkables as well as access to seven LOTR filming locations. After visiting Mt. Sunday (Edoras), it was clear why this beautiful and complementary landscape was selected for so many Rohan scenes.

The LOTR film locations are well marked (see Deer Park Heights LOTR film locations). Be sure to purchase your tickets in advance because we had planned to buy tickets at the gate, and they ran out. We had to come back the following day. Here’s a compilation of the Rohan warg attack reenactments at LOTR 3-5.

LOTR 1: Rohan Refugee March and Gimli falls off his horse

This was the last location we stopped, and we didn’t quite get Eowyn and Gimli Rohan refugee scene lined up. This was also a spot where Gandalf and Merry rode Shadowfax on their way to Minas Tirith. The Remarkables in the backdrop are so impressive. Since we visited in summer, they weren’t snowcapped like in LOTR.

Here’s another short video of us strolling along the lake: https://youtu.be/8AhWPSRRkgQ

LOTR 2: Rohan Refugee Camp and Eowyn Offers Aragorn Stew

We had fun reenacting the stew scene and snacking on lembas bread at this location.

LOTR 3: Warg Scout

There were 3 distinct scenes from the warg scout attack that were easy to pick out at this location.

Here’s a compilation video of our reenactments at this location.

LOTR 4: Legolas Kills Warg

This Legolas scene was one of the most difficult to mimic with it being an action sequence and trying to get both his knife and bow to position properly. After more attempts than we’d like to admit, we did get a couple of shots to kind of line up with the 3 steps in this scene. 🙂

LOTR 5: Legolas Lookout

The LOTR scene where Legolas spots the wargs and then fires arrows at them is actually reversed in the movie. With a little Photoshop work, we were able to get these to align 🙂

This spot made us think of the “Legolas, what do your elf eyes see?” scene so of course reenacted that.

LOTR 6: Aragorn goes over cliff

The scene where Aragorn is dragged over the cliff in the warg fight was difficult to get the right angle.

Gimli: Very dangerous over short distances!

This entire park reminded us of the LOTR three hunter scenes where Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli are tracking the orcs that took Merry and Pippin. I made a “Very dangerous over short distances” shirt for Scott, and we did a reenactment with the Remarkables in the backdrop.

Animals and Queenstown View

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