Mt. Sunday

Up to this point I never really went specifically to any Lord of the Rings locations. I may have been in the region, and noticed, this definitely would have been in LOTR. But I needed my inner geek to come alive! So when my friend Caleb said that Edoras was a two hour drive, we made plans for the weekend. After a long gravel drive going through mounds of gravel, clouds of dust and a few streams (poor car), we made it to Edoras! More unbelievable was the view. In such a remote area, miles of plains come to meet the alpine fault rising high into the sky. Right in the center of these plains, was a tiny mound.

It wasn’t very tiny once we got to it, in fact it was a small mountain. We decided to hike to Mt.Sunday, but found it hard not getting wet in the wide rivers. But to think, most of the filming of Rohan was around these rivers, and we were wading through rivers of middle earth!

Once we got to the top, we had a hard time figuring out where the Great Hall was constructed. On top we couldn’t get over the view. We were at least 1 hour from any other person in any direction. You know how in the movie Rohan is very windy? Well, it was extremely windy. We could hang up on top of Mt.Sunday if it wasn’t for us being thrown left and right by the wind.

You know how we were 1 hour away from any other people? Well, that was shortly over when a LOTR tour bus arrived. Filled with overweight Americans, they lugged their camera and fanny packs a mere 5% of what we hiked, because they had a 6x6 (yes, a 6x6) truck to take them up the hill. The best part was, we noticed they weren’t using regular walking sticks. They were using reproduction swords from the movies! Ha-ha. So it ended up turning into a geek contest. Here I am spotting the Uruk-hai taking the hobbits to Isengard in the distance.

Wanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander, or, in modern usage, to travel and to explore the world.