Touring Xena: Warrior Princess Filming Locations in New Zealand

I am a fan of Xena: Warrior Princess, a 1990s TV show filmed in New Zealand. I could wax on at length about the many reasons why it is fabulous, but I’ll simply say that anyone uninterested in the show might want to skip this post. Xena was filmed at various sites in the Auckland region, and finding some of them was one of the main things I wanted to do while I was in the area. I took a day trip out to the Bethells Beach area, the site of many, many Xena locations, where I met up with John and Trude Bethell-Paice, who own vacation cottages overlooking the lovely beach. The beach is public, but a lot of the show was filmed on their private land nearby, and John took me on a tour to see some of the main filming spots.

Bethells is about an hour west of Auckland, and getting there involved renting a car for the day. This was my first experience driving on the left side of the road, so it was a bit of an adventure. It was surprisingly easy to adjust, and I managed to stay on the left side all day long, but the number of times I adjusted the windshield wipers while attempting to turn is a little embarrassing. I did only walk to the wrong side of the car once, however. There is also an extremely silly NZ road rule requiring the person turning left, who would have right of way in Britain (the equivalent of a right turn in the US, where you also have right of way) to give way to an oncoming car turning right against the traffic. I vaguely understand this in theory when you show me a nice diagram, but I don’t see how it actually helps anyone, and it’s very irritating in practice when you’re busy trying to figure out where you need to turn. But otherwise, incident-free driving and I am rather proud.

Bethells Beach could, I think, be quite lovely, and it certainly looks pretty on Xena, but naturally it poured with rain the entire day I visited, so I got soaked and didn’t get to appreciate the area at its best. If the weather is like that a lot, I have a new respect for Lucy Lawless, Renee O’Connor, and anyone else involved in the show who had to deal with the weather in their skimpy costumes, while also trying not to look freezing while on camera. The rain wasn’t heavy, but it was pretty persistent, and the wind was strong.  Side note: my rental car was a Nissan Sunny, which amused me, but I would have preferred a Rainy car and a nicer day.

You have to drive down a long back road to the beach, and I was very excited when the hills suddenly parted and I got a clear glimpse of the “Xena rock” (the one in the opening credits when Poseidon appears out of the water). I parked up and walked along the beach by myself, because no one else was mad enough to be out there with the weather. It looks pretty much as it does on the show, although the winds and the sands have altered a few features like the dunes in the background of the beach. The beach has been used in so many scenes that it’s not worth listing them all, but the most notable ones jumping to my mind are Caesar’s crucifixion of Xena in Destiny, Eve’s baptism and the final scene of Motherhood, and the final scene of The Bitter Suite when Xena and Gabrielle are lying in the waves.

There is a bay off to the northern end that looked familiar, but it was blocked off by water so I couldn’t get over to it to explore. At the south end (the end where Xena is crucified; you are looking north in that scene and the Xena rock is behind you) there is a trail up to Bethells Beach Cottages. The rock itself looks just like it does on TV, and if you look at it side-on you can see the cave that Callisto used as a camp in Return of Callisto. Apparently you can go inside the cave, but it was high tide when I was there so I didn’t. I’m sure that’s been in other episodes as well, but I am not certain which ones.

The main surprise for me (other than Poseidon not popping up to greet me; what, am I not special enough for that?) was how dark the sand was. I knew Bethells was a black sand beach, but it had never been something I really noticed on the show. The sand is really quite dark, and for some reason had an interesting two-tone effect, with the sand near the water being a lot lighter than the drier sand further from the waves. Strange but very pretty. It’s something to do with the sand being volcanic residue, and also related to high iron content. The waves are also pretty strong, and the beach is popular with surfers. Other than a lifeguard hut at one end, it is perfect for a filming location because there is no human development on it at all.

I found John after that, and he drove me around their plot of land to several other cool locations. I saw the pine forest that was the home of many forest scenes, such as the wolf chase scene in Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and the opening battle of Path of Vengeance, plus miscellaneous campfires and fights. These trees are an introduced species, but grow well and are used for timber. The forest is one of those places that isn’t actually that spectacular, but with the right filming techniques it can be reused a lot of times, so the blandness is a helpful feature. I suspect a lot of scenes featuring Amazons were filmed here.

It might help if I describe the lay-out of this area. Think of an L shape, with Bethells Beach as the vertical part and Bethells Beach Cottages in the corner. The pine forest is the base of the L, and just above it are some extensive sand dunes, which form a barrier between the beach and Lake Wainamu (aka “Xena’s fishing spot”) to the east. I made a map to go along with the description in case it doesn’t make sense (click it for a larger version). We visited the lake first, and it looks just as you would expect, although I didn’t realise how long it is. If you look out at it from the shore (think of the end scene of Mortal Beloved), it actually is about a kilometre long. There is a little part of the shore that they used to film Fins, Femmes and Gems that looked very familiar, although the dock is not there in reality.

A few pieces of trivia about the lake: because of the way the sand dunes move according to the winds, it is getting smaller every year. The lake is a bit warmer and a lot calmer than the ocean, so you can swim in it, although not the day I was there. The angle of the sand means that you can dive in and it drops off very fast, so when Xena dives to swim to the underworld in Mortal Beloved, you can actually do that. (Return trip from the underworld not guaranteed.) And yes, there are fish in there, so Xena would be happy – although they are mostly introduced species that John informed me are not worth catching.

We explored the giant sand dunes next. These are familiar from scenes like the Chariots of War chase sequence (in the opening credits), the Callisto chase sequence, Callisto’s quicksand death in Return of Callisto, and, I believe, the desert scenes in Legacy. The main dunes are quite high up and they overlook a river, which is where the Chariots of War scene was filmed with the dunes off to the side. (Trivia: they filmed both ways, so on TV it looks like there are dunes on the left and the right, but there are actually only dunes on the south side of the river.) John drove me right through that river, but we couldn’t go too far because the rain made the water too high. Likewise, there are apparently some remains of an Amazon village filming location but that trail was impassable.

John actually worked occasionally as a driver for the crew, so he shared a few filming secrets with me too. He has driven both Lucy and Renee around, and various other cast and crew although he could not remember exactly whom. The pecking order was such that the important people like actors and directors got driven around in SUVs, and the regular folks had to share space in farm trucks. He showed me one owned by his late brother-in-law, and it didn’t look that comfortable! Some of the crew tried to drive themselves around at first, but after a lot of people getting stuck in the sand and so on, they agreed that filming could only happen on the land if the locals provided the transport. I think that’s fair enough.

The way filming worked was that the crews would set up a base camp location, sometimes up to a mile away from the actual filming area, where the generators and catering trucks and so on would be, and then the cast, crew and equipment would be transported to the filming area. Imagine driving all the lighting, sound and camera gear, plus generators to power everything, all over those sand dunes. I don’t know how many people would have been involved, but I am sure it was quite a sight.

We went back up to Bethells Beach Cottages (which looked lovely, btw, although way out of my budget to actually stay at). Kevin Sorbo apparently stayed there a couple of times. John had one last surprise for me and brought up a few Xena props he and Trude had purchased. They had a candelabra thing that I didn’t recognise from any particular episode (maybe Egyptian? maybe from Hercules? Any guesses?), and two swords. One was metal (with a broken handle, although that doesn’t show up in pictures) and blunt, though fairly heavy. I assume they used these in shots where the sword had to look realistic. The other one was plastic and very light, so likely used when filming the main actors during a fight scene. I am pretty sure this sword belonged to Ares, although I haven’t been able to find it in a screencap to compare.

Needless to say, when the swords came out, one particular picture just had to be taken. Sadly, I don’t look quite as cool as Xena despite my best efforts. Maybe if I wore the costume too?

John mentioned that a local antique shop had some Xena props, and I still had some time, so I took a quick detour that way. The shop is called Just Plane Interesting in Henderson, in case anyone reading this is ever in the Bethells area. They have all their stuff on display in a weird, dark “Xena Dedication Room,” with a baffling sign saying that no children are allowed. There’s nothing very scary in there: a couple of sarcophaguses (my guess is the one they cremate Gabrielle in in Blind Faith and one of the “Hate” coffins in The Bitter Suite that Callisto et al pop out of), a few swords and daggers, a lot of animal skulls from the Amazons, and a few other bits and pieces.

Most notable is a bust of the late Kevin Smith (Ares), which was lit to look rather creepy and didn’t seem like a very good likeness, but was a nice tribute to him nonetheless. For anyone desperate to own a Xena prop, this store had everything for sale, as well as a lot of cool non-Xena items.

That was it for my Xena day. A lot of fun, and I highly recommend heading out that way to any fans who find themselves in Auckland. Even if you don’t do the whole tour like I did, a stroll on Bethells Beach is about as close as a Xenite can come to a pilgrimage. It’s quite easy to get to, and then you will have the immense pleasure, as I do, of being able to point at the TV anytime you have the show on and announce, “I’ve been there!”

More pictures are in my Auckland album.

No innocent Kiwis were harmed by the author driving on the wrong side of the road during the creation of this blog post.