On the way home from our night away in Castlepoint, we stopped in at Kaitoke Regional Park to explore the location of Rivendell from the Lord of the Rings movies and did a short loop walk over the swingiest swing bridge I've ever encountered.
It would have been hard to imagine the scenes without the help of some cleverly places signs showing which parts of the area had been used before other special effects were added, and yet you would never know the place had been over-run by the movie makers, it has been more than restored to its untouched beauty.
It's certainly a beautiful spot and one we can imagine returning to another time when we have more time to explore and walk some of the other tracks like the longer 1 hour swingbridge track rather than just the 2 short loops we did. The boys (as always) enjoyed the opportunity to try and skim some stones in the Hutt river, and found some friendly ducks who eagerly lapped up the rest of the loaf of bread we had in the car - and there went the boy's toast and sandwiches for the week!
I also enjoyed the chance to get out the neutral density 10-stop filter and try out some long exposure shots with the moving water. I think I need a bit more practice but practice is the only way to perfect a shot as I have discovered so I'll keep trying it out on other occasions too.
Just from our short visit we could tell that this area is teeming with so many lovely places to walk and explore that we will definitely be back on another day when we have more time!
