From: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org (chakram-refugees-digest) To: chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Subject: chakram-refugees-digest V8 #5 Reply-To: chakram-refugees@smoe.org Sender: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-chakram-refugees-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk chakram-refugees-digest Monday, January 19 2009 Volume 08 : Number 005 Today's Subjects: ----------------- [chakram-refugees] Legend of the Seeker and the Amazon Forests [cr Subject: [chakram-refugees] Legend of the Seeker and the Amazon Forests Well, the very first shot of Legend of the Seeker is at an old Xena location. Remember where she ambushes Pompey's men in Endgame? (this is on Cable Road in Woodhill Forest at Muriwai). Well, right behind her in that shot (and hidden because she's standing in front of it!) is a sign that says 'Weight Limit on Bridge 1500kg', and the bridge to which it refers is the one that the Seeker is repairing in Scene 1. (By the way, seeing as the main beams of that bridge appear to be a couple of elderly telephone poles, I'm not sure I'd trust it with 150kg, let alone 1500 - the hairy cow in LOTS was probably wise to be reluctant to cross it! :) There are a lot of chases up and down Cable Road in the first episode, so Bevis King and I went out there a couple of days ago - and ran into Renpics. The thought that they might be there had never occurred to me, because I've always done my location-hunting at weekends, when they weren't working. At the forest gate, there was a man with a car who asked us who we were, I said we were just going for a walk in the forest (the Okiritoto Stream is a popular walk), I took him for a horse club member with a key to the gate (horses use the forest by permit) but Bevis guessed he was Renpics. We walked up the stream, and parked right on the ambush site from Endgame was a big white truck, apparently deserted. When you felt the side of it, you could feel a vibration as of a fridge running - but there was no sound at all - I've never heard (or failed to hear) such a well-silenced piece of equipment! A thick black cable disappeared up the slope to the north, we followed it for a couple of hundred yards, and came upon all the support trucks parked on a sandy track in the trees. I would have walked away quietly but Bevis, who is bolder than me, walked up to a man who was standing by the refreshments wagon and asked if it was 'Legend of the Seeker' - which the guy confirmed. He didn't seem particularly bothered by our presence. We could hear action off to our right but felt it better to leave them to it. As we left the forest, we asked the man on the gate if they were shooting a movie and he said yes, it was a Disney movie called Legend of the Seeker. So it's not a big secret, they're just not publicising it. Now, the bad news (for me anyway). I was up there again today, and met a local by the bridge who told me they're going to log the trees between Cable Road and the stream. I'm not surprised, the trees are old enough, but it will destroy all the locations that were used for Xena (except for the Northern Amazon camp, and that was logged before Coming Home). They're entitled to, it's a working pine forest, but all I can say is Bugger! Quite aside from any Xena connection, that strip of forest was one of the nicest places to walk that I know of - sandy ground (so, never muddy), nicely carpeted with pine needles, very little undergrowth, and with the stream alongside - even the grass along the stream was short and dry, and the stream had a nice sandy bed. And the tall trees provided shade and you could see for hundreds of yards between the trunks, it gives a nice air of mystery without the shut-in feeling you get in NZ native forests. Other parts of Woodhill have most of that, but they're not so near the forest entrance and they don't have the stream. It will recover, pine trees grow fast here, but it will still be ten or 15 years before you can again walk under the trees alongside the stream. Damn! cr ========================================================= This has been a message to the chakram-refugees list. To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@smoe.org with "unsubscribe chakram-refugees" in the message body. Contact meth@smoe.org with any questions or problems. ========================================================= ------------------------------ End of chakram-refugees-digest V8 #5 ************************************