After leaving Cape Palliser, we drove just a short distance along the coast road before coming to the turning for the Putangirua Pinnacles. We didn’t really know what to expect other than an area of rock pinnacles. After a quick picnic in the car we set off up the river bed. After crossing back and forth over the stream a few times the track finally turned to head up a small side gully.
We followed the track that climbed steeply up the gully before coming around the corner and seeing the first of the pinnacles sticking out from the bush. As we made our way further up the stream bed more and more of the rock pinnacles appeared on both sides of us.
The Putangirua stream has eroded the rocks in this area at a very uneven rate which has caused the pinnacles to form. It is a very localised phenomenon caused by old scree slopes that were deposited between seven and nine million years ago. We continued to follow the trail deeper in the the maze of rock pillars. Listening as occasionally we could hear a rock fall from one of the slopes around us.
I think it is hard to get a scale of the valley from the photos, but if you look closely at the photo above, you can pick out Eric in his purple t-shirt. The area was really unique and not like anywhere else we have seen, and it isn’t hard to see how this strange landscape was used in the Lord of the Rings films.
Once again, I fear it is time I actually watched the film, but apparently this valley was used in the Lord of the Rings film The Return of the King when Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli ride along the Dimholt Road to meet the Army of the Dead. We learnt that weed-free fodder was fed to the horses used in the film before they came to the Putangirua Pinnacles to avoid the introduction of weeds. Another condition of filming here was that all of the horse tracks were raked out of the gravel after the filming ended!
Luckily we didn’t need to worry about our footprints as we climbed up out of the valley and followed the walking track over the ridge to a lookout over the pinnacles. Leaving the lookout we returned to the car ready for our drive back to Wellington, feeling lucky that we had been able to see so many different landscapes in such a short amount of time.