Pics of places that look like places from the films, or are just nice. [2]

It does sort of; the trees look sort of drunk, and it all could be the Old Forest too.

There wound lazily a dark river of brown water, bordered with ancient willows, arched over with willows, blocked with fallen willows, and flecked with thousands of faded willow-leaves. The air was thick with them, fluttering yellow from the branches; for there was a warm and gentle breeze blowing softly in the valley, and the reeds were rustling, and the willow-boughs were creaking.
'Well, now I have at least some notion of where we are!' said Merry. 'We have come almost in the opposite direction to which we intended. This is the River Withywindle!' (FotR, The Old Forest)

Eldorion wrote:I'm sure the light and vegetation are all wrong to discerning Old World eyes like those of Petty, but that definitely looks Mirkwoody to me.

NB Was the camera tilted, or what makes the trees lean like that?  I've seen leaning trees in Alaska where the snow had warped them, but I can't imagine that was the case in Ecuador, since there wouldn't be that many trees if you were far enough up in the mountains to get snow at that latitude.

Wind! There are little patches of this forest against the sides of the mountains where it is calm enough to survive but windy enough to make them bough.

I thought the whole area was pretty funky... not quite Mirkwood hence the 'outskirts' reference. Think it would make a nice ME location though.

Bluebottle wrote:

Lancebloke wrote:Outskirts of Mirkwod maybe?

Yeah, does look quite Mirkwoody. Looks great anyway. So, what were you doing at the edge of irkwood? As far as I remember ther is little there but Beorn, and he's not necessarily very firendly to visitors.

Was just doing a little trek. Easing in to the altitude before we do some more challenging hikes. Moving to a place called Huarez tomorrow and have a big hike in a few days... over 4000m so will be puffing.

4000m, Im out of puff just thinking about it- are their chair lifts?

Ah, yes. I remember seeing Michael Palin travelling through those parts. Do they give you coca tea for the altitude or is that just in Bolivia?

Nope... only legs and 6 hours of walking. I have the Lares Valley and Machu Picchu soon. Need to get used to it.

Blue - yes, you can get cocao tea or leaves to chew on to help here too. Will be at altitude in Bolivia too but should be more acclimatised by then.

Ah, chewing coca leaves. I remember Stephen Maturin getting addicted to that in the Patrick O'Brian books, becoming Europes probably first, if fictional, cocain addict.

All sounds great fun, Lance.  Always been fascinated by that area and the Inca culture and so on.

Went to some temples and cities that pre date the Inca today. Was very interesting and some parts remarkably well preserved after 1500 odd years.

That sounds excellent Lance- did you get some pictures- would love to see them.

Coca tea is very helpful - I never felt the least bit of altitude sickness on the inca trail.

Petty - I am keeping a blog on my website www.lancebloke.com

I will be updating it again tomorrow which will include some fantastic mountain scenery as well as lots of temples!

Thanks Lance- Ive bookmarked that

Puget sound outside Seattle.



It's from an article about pollution of said sound, but still.. very pretty.
http://www.watoxics.org/publications/puget-sound-down-the-drain-1

Lancebloke wrote:Petty - I am keeping a blog on my website www.lancebloke.com

I will be updating it again tomorrow which will include some fantastic mountain scenery as well as lots of temples!

Um, that "swing at the edge of the world", do you tie in or they just expect if a kid can hang on an adult can? (great concept).

There is a little rope that goes across the front too. Not hard to slip out if you aren't paying attention though.

Reminds me of the fat Goblin King.

yeah it does

I like that last one chris

I've never seen Rankin/Bass Hobbit fanart before.

I like the Goblin pic as well !

The Pinnacles, Western Australia.

It looks very Sci-Fi but, to me it feels very peaceful, and old, as tho this is where Time began.