NZ +21: Lord of the Things (Again)

Now, I swear I haven't been trailling round the country looking for film locations, but you may remember I mentioned that we had been to the palce where What's-her-name gallops across a dry river bed and then a huge wall of water is CGIed in to drown the baddies.

Well, today, I went to the place where they filmed the huge wall of water. It's on North Island, whereas the actual ford is on South Island. But it was all pieced together in the editing suite. He could have saved a lot of money and just used Google Images and PaintShop, surely?

Anyway, back to the story.

This is my second turn on/turn off "natural" tourist attraction in two days. They have built a dam across the river ( a bit downstream from the Huka Falls) and installed two big gates in it...



At various times each day...



The gates open...



...transforming the dry rapids below...



...into a foaming torrent...



...for about half an hour. Then they turn them off again, and the water drains out. It's like the world's biggest spa bath.

It's all for a purpose of course. The river priovides 25% (or thereabouts) of NZ's entire electricity supply...



...from various power stations along its length.

And here's this post's geothermal mention...

As well as hydro-electricity, they also generate a lot of electricity here from the geothermal stuff they fleece tourists to see. This results in landscapes of shiny piping, which looks a bit like something Blake used to chase Servalan over...



Off to Turangi later...