Russell Kirkpatrick's Journal
My visit to Mesopotamia
05-Nov-2007
Before you get all envious, this is Mesopotamia Station, a large high country run in the South Island of New Zealand. It's on the opposite side of Rangitata valley to Mt Sunday, where the Meduseld scenes were filmed for Lord Of The Rings. Glorious country.
I was down in Christchurch, my old home town, visiting my youngest brother. His family invited me to come with them for a weekend holiday at Mt Peel, from where his father in law took me to Mesopotamia.
The landscape is so raw. There's something about it that evokes fantasy - which is why that one valley hosted LOTR and has two famous high country stations called 'Mesopotamia' and 'Erewhon' (supposedly 'nowhere' backwards, though if that's the case then Samuel Butler, himself a novelist and owner of the station in the nineteenth century, couldn't spell). I found my writing batteries thoroughly recharged by the weekend away. There was the larger-than-life setting, and also the companions I went away with. Now I have something to write about, I'll get down to it. Book 3 begins tomorrow.
Just have to think of a name for it ...
"erewhemos" "erewhyna" - nah.