Mount SundayMount Sunday is an isolated hill in the inland Canterbury region of New Zealand's South Island. It was chosen as the location for the settlement of Edoras in The Lord of the Rings films and has since become a tourist attraction. LocationMount Sunday rises above the floodplain of the upper Rangitata River, just up from where the Potts River joins it, in Ashburton District, Canterbury, New Zealand.
Rangitata GorgeThe RangitataGorge is a gorge located in the Canterbury High Country in the South Island of New Zealand. The narrow gorge links the headwaters of the Rangitata River with the fertile Canterbury Plains. The Rangitata gorge is commercially rafted by a local company. It is also a popular river for visiting kayakers, fishermen and adventurist locals in jet boats.
Canterbury PlainsThe Canterbury Plains (Māori: Kā Pākihi-whakatekateka-a-Waitaha) are an area in New Zealand centred in the Mid Canterbury, to the south of the city of Christchurch in the Canterbury region. Their northern extremes are at the foot of the Hundalee Hills in the Hurunui District, and in the south they merge into the plains of North Otago beyond the Waitaki River. The smaller Amuri Plain forms a northern extension of the plains.
ErewhonErewhon: or, Over the Range (, ERR-eh-hwon) is a utopian novel by English writer Samuel Butler, first published in 1872, set in a fictional country discovered and explored by the protagonist. The book is a satire on Victorian society. Its name is the word “nowhere”, erroneously spelt "nohwere", read backwards, sharing the same meaning as “utopia” (nowhere).
TimaruTimaru (English: ; Māori: Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury region of New Zealand, 157 km (98 mi) southwest of Christchurch and about 196 km (122 mi) northeast of Dunedin, on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The urban area's population of 29,300 people is the largest in South Canterbury, and the third-largest in the Canterbury Region overall, after Christchurch and Rolleston.
Pacific OceanLargest ocean on EarthThe Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five oceanic divisions. It stretches from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is bounded by the continents of Asia and Australia in the west and the Americas in the east.
Mesopotamia StationMesopotamia Station is a high-countrystation in New Zealand's South Island. Known mainly for one of its first owners, the novelist Samuel Butler, it is probably the country's best known station. Despite popular belief, Butler was not the station's first owner.
Māori languagePolynesian language spoken in New ZealandMāori (Māori:; endonym: te reo Māori, 'the Māori language', also shortened to te reo) is an Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost member of the Austronesian language family, it is related to Cook Islands Māori, Moriori, Tuamotuan, and Tahitian.
Samuel Butler (novelist)Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an English novelist and critic, best known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon (1872) and the semi-autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh (published posthumously in 1903 with substantial revisions and published in its original form in 1964 as Ernest Pontifex or The Way of All Flesh). Both novels have remained in print since their initial publication.
Braided riverA braided river (also called braided channel or braided stream) consists of a network of river channels separated by small, often temporary, islands called braid bars or, in British English usage, aits or eyots. Braided streams tend to occur in rivers with high sediment loads or coarse grain sizes, and in rivers with steeper slopes than typical rivers with straight or meandering channel patterns.
Southern AlpsThe Southern Alps (Māori: Kā Tiritiri o te Moana; officially Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana) is a mountain range extending along much of the length of New Zealand's South Island, reaching its greatest elevations near the range's western side. The name "Southern Alps" generally refers to the entire range, although separate names are given to many of the smaller ranges that form part of it.
Rohan, Middle-earthRohan is a fictional kingdom of Men in J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy setting of Middle-earth. Known for its horsemen, the Rohirrim, Rohan provides its ally Gondor with cavalry. Its territory is mainly grassland. The Rohirrim call their land the Mark or the Riddermark, names recalling that of the historical kingdom of Mercia, the region of Western England where Tolkien lived.*As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.