Inside The Road Trip — & Middle Earth: Skippers Canyon
This is it, the last instalment of photos from my recent road trip — but what a way to finish, with Skippers Canyon.
The Skippers Road is reputedly the 7th most dangerous road in the world (how this is measured I do not know!) but regardless of ‘rankings’ it is narrow, with precipitous drops for much of the route and one’s car insurance does not cover you for trips along it.
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Nor would I be game to drive it if it did, to be honest. So I went with a licensed operator in a 4WD vehicle.
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I have been along the road once before, but some years ago and I really wanted to see it again. I was not disappointed. It is the most fabulous country: austere and awe-inspiring and chock-full of history.
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Mostly the history stems from the gold-mining era when the Shotover River was regarded as “the richest river in the world” (for a time) and places like the Oxenbridge Tunnel and Bullendale Reef were making technological history.
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But oh my, look at that landscape and tell me if you agree that it must have been incredibly bleak living there in winter. Or maybe just: oh my, look at that landscape…
By way of a bonus, the stretch of the Shotover river below the current terminus of the road was the Fords of Bruinen from LoTR 1, which I hadn’t realised–I thought it was entirely shot on the Arrow River near Arrowtown. (Apparently part of it was, but this is the main location.)
The locale is just below the Skippers Suspension Bridge:
For a different perspective on the bridge — you can see why it was once used for bungy jumping:
Beyond the bridge lies the Mt Aurum Station homestead and Skippers’ School, both now part of an historic reserve:
Awesome, huh?
Awesome? Hell yeah!
Thought you might like, Paul. 😉
Here from twitter, I was attracted by the Middle Earth line. And then I stayed because the photos looked really breathtaking, and then I realised I went there once! Which is just incredible since I live on the opposite side of the Earth and went to NZ only once, long ago, for paragliding, between Queenstown and Wanaka. I think they were shooting LotR at the time but I wasn’t aware of it.
Well, the autumn mood makes the landscape look even better! Wilder, larger. You’re so lucky to live in NZ!
La Tarasque on Twitter
It is indeed wild and spectacular and even though I live here I never get tired of it.
In response to Graeme whose comment disappeared into the ether on being approved:
Skippers is well worthy of being on your bucket list — and I would love to check out the Clarence Reserve for a Canterbury comparison. 🙂