A treasure trove of memories

A crashed computer is a painful thing. Heartbreaking, really. And when there is no hope of data recovery you just tend to cry a litte then put on your Big Girl Pants and carry on.

Back in 2007, my PC died. At the time, I blamed C because he was the one using it at the time, but I suspect the poor old thing just had had enough. He took it to his supposedly genius neighbour to try to fix, but to no avail.

I was inconsolable - though I had backed up photos of two of my big holidays, I hadn't backed up anything else. This was before the days of USBs and external hard drives, everything usually got burnt to 700MB CDs. I had lost all of my pics from my New Zealand Lord of the Rings trip, and all my everyday photos from 2004 up to that point.

Recently, when our current PC died and our new Geek Friend managed to retrieve all the data, C had a brainwave. He had for some strange reason kept my old hard drive, perhaps clinging to the hope that one day he would be able to fix it. Five years later (last week), he took it to Geek Friend and begged her to get him out of the shit with me and back in the good books!

And she did! She managed to extract all the corrupted data, and rescued all my old photos. I cannot tell you how happy this has made me. As a scrapbooker, I have always keenly felt the loss of these memories, and I was so moved when I was able to see them again.

These photos brought back so many memories. Most of all though, I was grateful to get back my NZ photos, and now have the task of deciding what type of project to choose for them! I am wavering between a digital book and a traditional scrapbook album.

I thought I would share some of these photos with you all, as some are truly beautiful, and some historic!

A little background: In December 2003 I was at the height of my Lord of the Rings fangirliness. I flew to New Zealand with two friends for a two-week holiday. We rented a car and drove ourselves around, staying wherever we ended up that night. We visited many LOTR filming locations and ended up in Wellington for the big Return of the King premiere and celebrations. We went to the TheOneRing.net party and watched the parade the next day. It was just ace.

Rotarua

Queenstown

A "tarn" in the mountains above Queenstown. The Rohan refugee scene from The Two Towers was filmed here.

Coromandel Ranges

Franz Josef Glacier

Franz Josef Glacier

Somewhere in Marlborough. I think they filmed some Narnia stuff on this beach (many years later of course).

Same Marlborough beach

Te Anau

Tongariro National Park. The Mt Doom scenes were filmed up here.

Wellington, Return of the King weekend. Telecom New Zealand renamed its mobile cell tower in honour of the occasion.

Ian McKellan soaking up the adoration of fans

Elvish warriors

Ah, so many wonderful memories! Watching Peter Jackson's production videos of The Hobbit filming really makes me emotional. New Zealand has a special place in my heart and though I've already been twice, I want to go there again soon.

Have you found anything recently that you thought was lost?