New Xenaland
	Xena and Hercules Locations Bethells valley

Bethells is unusual in having such a wide variety of scenery in such a small area (which is doubtless why film makers find it so attractive). Hills, 'bush', sand dunes, swamps, rivers, streams, lakes, grass paddocks, bare hilltops, cliffs and of course the beach, can all be found within a distance of five miles.
 

Bethells valley

Not long after the two routes converge, you reach the little cluster of houses and the fire station at the end of Te Aute Road East, and the valley on your right widens into a small area of river flats. Across the far side of the valley, but very difficult to distinguish from the road, is the paddock where many scenes have been filmed over the years, including the 'sacrifice' scene in Sacrifice, the fish fight in The Quill is Mightier, and the Argo scene in In Sickness and in Hell - filmed in winter when the ground was very muddy. You can see that in the episode. (This is just east of where it says 'Glasshouses' on the map.)
 

The paddock in Bethells valley	where Callisto	and Xena meet again in Sacrifice

Further on, the river flats become a swamp of quite respectable proportions. Never used by Xena so far as we know, but interesting and colourful at the right time of year.

Waiti dunes and Lake Wainamu

The trip to the lake and back is an interesting and pleasant walk in the right weather (but there's almost no shelter if it rains). You can either walk up the stream or take the short-cut over the dunes - or, better, go one way and come back the other.

After a long dry period at the end of summer, the Wainamu branch stream may have dried up leaving just the flat stream bed. After rain, it can be flowing quite vigorously, but never more than a few inches deep. Both streams, Waiti and Wainamu, have a flat sandy bed, which makes it ideal for filming action sequences - not slippery or rocky for the cast to injure themselves. Similarly, the fineness of the black sand probably helps to explain how stunties can be dragged around without losing any skin.

It's quite pleasant, in most seasons, to walk up the stream barefoot - but beware the heat of the sand on the dunes on bare feet in summer, though!

There are several curious features of this 'black' sand, for anyone used to the more normal beach sand. It's very fine and unusually heavy. The colour and the weight come from ironsand - iron oxide. The colour means that on hot days it soaks up heat from the sun, and it's an excellent conductor of heat, as your feet will tell you very quickly. It looks light enough with the sun on it, but it goes remarkably dark quite early in the afternoon, or in any cloud shadow. The surrounding bush is also very dark. Your eyes will adapt to this automatically but colour film can't, not even in auto-exposure cameras, if there are patches of sky or sunlight to fool them. It can be quite remarkably difficult to take a clear photo, as some of the illustrations on this page show only too well.

Only the middle part of the dunes is public, the eastern and western edges are in private land, though the owners don't seem to mind the public walking over them. The Wainamu stream bed along the east end of the dunes is signposted as public access to the lake, though its east bank is definitely private property.

However, if anyone is filming anywhere in this area, their permit may give them exclusive use of the area, which means they could legally keep the public out. If you should be lucky enough to come on anyone filming, please remember they have a job to do. Keep a good distance away, keep out of shot, and the security guys just might be less likely to move you on.
 
 

	From Lake Wainamu (bottom right) the Wainamu Stream flows between the eastern edge of the dunes and the hillside to join the Waiti Stream at top then along the north side of the dunes to cross under the main road and join the Waitakere River (left)

If you start up the signposted walking track from the car park along the south side of the stream, after a quarter mile or so you come to a place where the stream has widened itself and scoured the dune edges into a steep face. Xena and Callisto fell down this face in Callisto. From here on, the stream has been used in many episodes; most of its length was first used in Chariots of War.
 

The entrance to the dunes. The track leads in from the left.  You can continue up the stream, or take a short-cut  across the dunes to the lake	Xena and Callisto rolling down the dune This is in the middle distance of the picture at left

Some photographers would kill for a shot like that	Looking back downstream Callisto killed Perdycorpse in the clearing at right

Xena and Pao Ssu at the ford,  about half way along the valley	The 'hidden valley'

Looking from the highest dune across Boadicea's flat to the lake
		Wainamu Stream fringing the dunes,  Boadicea's flat in foreground

Beyond here the dunes effectively act as a natural dam across the valley, creating Lake Wainamu. A bit of a scramble across the sand leads to the lake, or you can follow the stream to the Lake Wainamu Track along the northern edge of the lake - though all the filmed scenes took place at the west end by the dunes.

Note: Though most of the Waitakere tracks were closed in 2018, the track up the stream and the loop track around the lake is still open. (The boundary line up the ridge where the views below were taken is definitely closed, though.)

The views of the lake below may be familiar - a number of linking 'continuity' shots were filmed along the boundary line high on the ridge north of the lake.

East end of Wainamu seen from high on the ridge to the north	The hillside in foreground hides the west end of the lake in this view	Seen from lower on the ridge. The secluded little beach is at the left end of the dunes Wainamu Stream flows out to the right

Lake Wainamu - more particularly the west end by the dunes - was seen in many episodes of both Hercules and Xena. Xena dived into it in Mortal Beloved, and the little beach at the south end of the dune face is where Gabby waited and met Atyminius in that episode, where she and Seraphin talked in Sacrifice, and where Xena went swimming and kite fishing and battled the villains in Fins Femmes and Gems.
 

Xena goes for a swim in Wainamu	Gabby and the would-be sacrifice at the little beach

Lake Wainamu from the west end; the high ridge in the centre is the viewpoint for the photos above	Looking north from the little beach along the edge of the dunes	The secluded little beach at the south corner of the dunes

Heading back to the high point of the dunes, you can look back towards the lake over the flat area where Xena left Argo in Sin Trade. If you follow the ridge of the dunes to the north, you can look down the slope to the west and get the same perspective, with the sea behind, as when Xena was leading Callisto on Argo in the episode Callisto.
 

Lake Wainamu from the top of the dunes	Looking the other way towards the west - Xena and Callisto from the top of the dunes with a long lens

Below you to the north, where the sand gives way to long tussocky grasses and toitoi, and separated from the stream valley by a straggly row of pine trees, is the location of the famous love-on-horseback scene from The Debt which, we finally realised after much hunting around the mountains, was nowhere near Mt Ruapehu. The mountains in the distance beyond Borias as he rode off to meet Lao Ma were indeed Ruapehu - put there by Flat Earth's CGI machine. Cunning, cunning Renpics!
 
 

Here's the 'desert'	And there's the mountain, all right
But the 'desert' hides the Waiti stream valley at the base of the bush-clad slope (note the skyline matches)...	.... and the mountain was nothing but a computer-induced mirage over Taumaiti Hill

If you head down the gradual slope of the dunes southwest from here, you'll pass the place where they all walked off into the sunset at the end of Eternal Bonds (and, the last Herc episode, Full Circle). A little further on, you may find the hump that Joxer sat on at the end of Return of Callisto.
 

Herc and Iolaus walk off into the sunset at the end of the series	Joxer's hump can still be seen on the dunes

Xena and Callisto floundering in the quicksand	And the actual spot (or close to it)

Across to the south from here, at the upper edge of the sand, is the little pine forest from which Xena led the Amazons to attack Alti's men in Sin Trade.
 

The Ewokazons charge out of the forest...	.... and eastwards up the hill. Those girls are fit. Try running up the slope yourself if you don't believe us!

From the edge of this forest, a sandy track leads southwest into the forest to the site of the final ambush in Helicon

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