Mavora Lakes

Where it sits. The Mavora Lakes are two long, narrow glacial lakes lying end to end in a trough between the Thomson and Livingstone Mountains, in northern Southland roughly midway between Te Anau and Queenstown. North Mavora — Manawapopore — is the larger, running about eight kilometres from end to end and dropping to considerable depth in a classic glacier-gouged basin. South Mavora — Hikuraki — is shorter and shallower, and the two are joined by a short reach of the Mararoa River, which then continues south toward the Waiau. Beech forest comes down to the water on the western shore and along the connecting river; the eastern side is open tussock and scree. The whole area sits within the Snowdon Forest and is part of Te Wāhipounamu, the South West New Zealand World Heritage Area.

A place with almost nothing built in it. There is no settlement, no shop, no power and no mobile coverage at the lakes. Facilities amount to Department of Conservation campsites at the southern end of North Mavora and beside South Mavora, with long-drop toilets, fireplaces and untreated water. This is deliberate — the area is managed as a conservation park with basic recreation use, and the low-cost camping is one of the few remaining places in the southern lakes district where a family can stay beside water like this for the price of a campsite fee. The country was run for sheep from the nineteenth century and the surrounding land is a mixture of conservation estate and pastoral lease; the Mavora Walkway follows the lakes north and eventually links through to Greenstone Valley and the Routeburn, forming part of the Te Araroa long-distance trail.

On screen. Mavora carried some of the heaviest dramatic load of The Fellowship of the Ring. North Mavora Lake stood in for Nen Hithoel, the long lake above the Falls of Rauros where the Fellowship makes its final camp at Parth Galen — and the shoreline scenes of that camp, the breaking of the Fellowship, Boromir's last stand and his funeral boat were filmed on and around this water. The beech forest above the eastern shore supplied the wooded slopes of Amon Hen where Frodo is pursued and the company scatters, and the Mararoa River between the two lakes appeared as the Silverlode, the river the Fellowship follows out of Lothlórien. Sections of forest here were also used for Fangorn. Nothing was left behind; the production worked under conservation conditions and removed everything, so the reward for visiting is simply that the lake, the beech and the light are unchanged.

What you actually see today. Dark water, a stony shore, red beech coming down almost to the waterline, and mountains rising steeply on both sides with a hard treeline partway up. The lakes run north-south, so morning and evening give side-light along the whole length; still mornings produce near-perfect reflections and are common in late summer. Brown and rainbow trout are present and the fishing is well regarded. Bird life includes bellbird, tomtit, paradise shelduck and the occasional falcon; blue duck hold on the Mararoa. Walking options range from an easy hour along the lake edge to the multi-day Mavora Walkway, and there is a swing bridge over the Mararoa near the campsite. Sandflies are severe here, as everywhere in this part of the country, and are worse on still days.

Reading the landscape. The trough the lakes sit in was cut by ice moving south out of the divide, and the evidence is legible from the campsite: a flat-floored, steep-walled valley far too large for the small river that now occupies it, with moraine ridges at the southern end that dammed the water in the first place. The forest is almost pure beech — red beech lower down, mountain beech on the colder faces — with no podocarps, which is characteristic of country that was scoured to bare rock and recolonised. Beech forest here has an open floor and very little undergrowth, so it can be walked through off-track more easily than most New Zealand bush, and it is why the location worked on camera for both Amon Hen and Fangorn without any set dressing.

Getting there and timing. Turn off the Te Anau-Mossburn highway, State Highway 94, at the Mavora Lakes Road near Centre Hill, then follow about thirty-nine kilometres of unsealed road north. It is a reasonably maintained gravel road passable in a normal car in dry conditions, with fords in a few places and severe corrugations in a dry summer; it is slow, and forty minutes to an hour is realistic. There is no fuel, no water supply and no rubbish collection at the lakes. Campers must be entirely self-sufficient, take all waste out, and use only established fireplaces or none at all during fire restrictions. December to March is the practical season; the campsites are busiest around the New Year. Outside summer the road is exposed to snow and the campsites are cold, wet and largely empty, which some people prefer.