A Set from Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Cover of the book, Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis.

We are very fortunate to have the third movie from the Narnia series being filmed in Australia, very close to where we live. This scene you see above has been created at the Gold Coast at the end of 'The Spit'. We decided to go down and see what we could see! We were hoping that they would be filming today but it was not to be. If we had been here two days ago, we would have seen this!

You might also want to pop on over to see our photos of the Dawn Treader itself, when you finish looking at this post.

We drove to the end of The Spit and saw the high fences all around and lots of hugh campervans and the back of the set itself. We parked the car and walked over and spotted these two boats. Obviously not your average type tinny that you'd see on the waters...

Peaking inside the boats....

Bit of Narnian scrollwork at the bow.

We found these boats at the local boat ramp a few hundred metres away..they too, didn't look like your average moored boat and when we spotted the security man nearby, we knew they were part of the set.
Then we walked to the northern end of the set and caught an exciting glimpse!

As we looked from the rocks into the water we could see that the water was not very deep..I was starting to kick myself that we didn't throw in one of our kayaks as someone had suggested over at 4Real where I had been discussing it.

Now here's a shot pulling back to see what's behind the set...

Peering into an archway the builders are working on.

Here's a view through the archway...at a highrise!

Then we walked around to the southern end of the set.

Lots of weaved, fishing baskets by the looks of it..by now we were really disappointed we didn't bring a kayak, the day was beautiful, the waters were very calm and it was a quiet day on the usually busy waters..

End of the pier..

This was on the fence (to read it, click on the photo and it will enlarge)

Some sort of old wagon at the back on the set.

Outside the fenced area was this enormous tent, where they must feed the extras, which were quite a few hundred, I understand.

It's amazing to look at how they create these things..so realistic from the front, so artificial from the back! ...So, it was off home again...or was it?? We thought that it would be great to be able to hire a tinny but where to find one? As we drove off The Spit and along the mainland towards our turnoff to the highway, all of a sudden someone shouted, "Boats for hire!" So a quick U-y and before long we were.....

...motoring along on the waters! We hired two boats to fit myself and the six children. My oldest boy Francis drove one and I drove the other.

The kids were VERY glad they have an adventurous and fly-by-the-seat-of-her-pants mum!!

After a great cruise on the water, probably about 20mins or so, we caught sight of this!

FINALLY, we could see the front of the set!

So enjoy the series of photos below! (Any of the photos you can click open to enlarge)

Finally it was time to go..from this photo, half looks real, the other half all scaffoldings.

Slowly disappearing in the distance...

Ahead you could see the Gold Coast skyline..and that's only a very small sample of what is here in this famous tourist city.

The kids were having a ball!

Every now and then, we'd get caught in the wash of a bigger vessel and my Therese (9) was very nervous indeed! We even had the water police waving at us.

As we made our way back we passed Seaworld.

Here's another shot of Seaworld with a dredge parked in the waters nearby.

You can see the monorail here at one very expensive hotel. On our way back home along the highway we passed Movieworld, another theme park. Right alongside they have the Warner Brother Studios where the Voyage of the Dawn Treader is also being filmed in the sound studios. We pulled up to take a few photos there as well.

We saw a blue screen being built, not usually there when we have passed on other occasions, this is most likely being constructed for the VoftheDT.

The construction men were very busy with this..

Behind you can see the sound stages..

I understand the stars of the movie are having a wonderful time here and I don't blame them, it's a beautiful part of the world...

We look forward to trying to see another film site in September a bit closer to home, I understand we will see the Dawn Treader itself! I found this little video on youtube, it would seem that they already setting up for it.

Editing to add, this great blog post, the lady here got great shots of the set when they were actually filming!