It is approximately 30 kilometres Northwest of Auckland City and on the Tasman Sea. Other near by place in the area are Muriwai, Piha and Karekare.
How to get there: From Scenic Drive, Waitakere Road, Te Henga Road, Bethells Road.
The Te Henga Valley shows evidence of human settlement dating back over 1000 years. The arrival of Europeans in the 19th century led to major changes in the character and shape of Bethells Beach. John Bethell negotiated with the Waitakere County Council to sell the land that is now known as Te Henga Park. The Council considered the beach and park area would provide excellent recreation facilities for all Aucklanders. Te Henga was recognized as a place of regional significance.
Today Trude and John Bethell-Pierce are the proud owners of a huge property at Bethells Beach.
Te Henga Beach (Bethell Beach) is wild and magnificent. In every way IT IS A STAR! Its inspiring beauty will let you dream away. This star's beauty has lead to it being used as a location for several film productions. The most know one is : XENA WARRIOR PRINCESS! Depending on the shooting angle you can have multiple other scenes all from the same locations. You will notice that by watching the pictures.
PICTURES VERSUS SCREENGRABS
Below you find for each episode filmed the pictures versus the screengrabs.
It might be that some pictures will come several times as some locations have been used for multiple episodes. Only the shooting angle is then different. But I explain it by each of the mentioned episodes. This is the best way to show you all where and how certain shoots have been taken. It is very interesting and you will get much more respect for Lucy Lawless, Renée O'Connor, and all the other actresses and actors aswell as the filmcrew. A weekly wide screen movie TV show thanks to these fabulous location at Auckland. Watching the pictures you surely will recognize other filming scenes but be patient as I will come to it later on. But do not forget to go to the foto album Bethell's Beach for more pictures with comments.
Private walk track Bethell's Cottages
When you take the private walk track from Bethells Cottages down to Bethells Beach it will lead you to the begin shoots of a scene out of Ulysses and Motherhood. Taking in account that after 12-13 years nature changed a bit you still can clearly see the shootings.
Here is a long shoot. Take directly to the right and you walk in the footsteps of Xena anHere a long shoot.
Almost in the footsteps. I took a later way out. Xena and Gabrielle walked through the bushes and came into the private track of Bethells Beach.
Go straight ahead (you remember turning right was for Ulysses) and you come onto the walk down towards the beach
Karin walking in the footsteps of Xena, Gabrielle and Eve.
A luck she doesn't need the Baptist! LOL!
THE CAVE
I couldn't resist this cave and we even tried to film a scene. To get to the cave, simple follow the Ulysses or Motherhood track and once on the beach turn left. Attention! Arriving at the beach you have to pass the Little Problem rock on your left side. Once you passed this rock you will immediately see the cave. Best time to visit the cave is when the tide is low. The tides do change fast so take care you still can get out of there without getting to wet. Don't panic, you won't get stuck there!
The cave is well known out of Ulysses and The Return of Calisto
Ulysses, Xena and Gabrielle walking on the rock track towards the cave. You can easily take this walk yourselves and have a nice adventurious walk on the rocks. Do it always when the tide is low.
A long view of the rock towards the cave. You can walk onto the point and have a perfect view over the beach. And then come back in the footsteps of our heroes.
The Little Problem rock (I come to that later on) which you have to pass to see the cave beyond it. You have here a long shoot and a closer shoot onto the cave. The Little Problems rock in front of it. You surely will recognize other scenes from here but you will find them more detailed later on. Keep them in mind!
Okay, here a nice comparison between the screengrabs and the pictures. The scene has been taken when the tide was very low. The tide was at it lowest and then they have been working as crazy at the low tide doesn't remain long. And you do not have each day a lowest tide to shoot this scene. From the position of the sun it must have been taken close to evening. Either they had a lucky day or they just had enormious patient.
THE ROCK
The rock you passed by when you went to see for the Calisto/Ulysses cave is now the subject. It has been used in Little Problems. And it is always in the background of Motherhood (Gods Shooting Gallery), Ulysses beach fight, Miss Amphipolis beginning, And it comes into scene as an overlooked place in Miss Amphipolis as well, allthough not used then. This rock is easily accesable. No need to climb. So for now it is only Little Problems related. The others scene shoot are shown in the next items.
At the waterfront. Scene has been take at high tide. I took the picture at low tide. The big rock in the back is hidden on my picture
This scene has been taken behind the Little Problem rock at the peninsula. See how Calisto's cave is hidden now.
Watch the background in the scene on your left.
The same place in the picture on the right. Xena and Gabrielle are now walking on Bethells Beach.
Above: the middle picture shows you the place where the 2 outer ones have been filmed.The hill behind Karin is the Miss Amphipolis place
Left and right : one of the ending scenes of Little problems versus the reality
Another shoot at the ending of the Little Problems. The shoot is taken from the Miss Amphipolis Hill which is just behind the Little Problem rock. The peninsula is between them
The place where Gabrielle is standing is just down the picture on your left. She stands in front of the Little Problem rock.
If you stand in Gabrielle' place you find on her left side the private track that leads to Bethells Beach cottage. The same track used at the beginning of Ulysses and also used in Motherhood as mentioned above on this site
Picture on the left
Xena and Gabrielle are walking down the track to the beach.
Ulysses will do his fight left of them just outside the picture.
Picture in the middle.
Xena and Gabrielle do come running from a totally other place now.They are now running towards the rock while they just had the rock on their left side.
THE MISS AMPHIPOLIS HILL
I called that hill like that as it gives such a nice view and feeling standing above the black sand sea and above all other hills on the beach. Feel yourselves really Xena and Miss Amphipolis. It gives you thrills knowing that our heroes stood there too for making the scene as we know from the Xena Warrior Princess show. This is an unique experience. And as far as I know these are one of the only scenes that are accessable for the public to discover it all. Bethells is the STAR for sure.
As you can on the right picture Karin stands where Xena stood.
We couldn't take such a close-up picture as the scene.
Watch the background. You have the same rock into the sea.
Where the red car is on the beach that group of rocks is seen just behind Xena.
During the years nature changed a bit. But is was quiet fun to get up that hill and try to get almost the same scene shoot. I can assure you that it has not been easy for the film crew as you only have limited space to move around there.
Hmm, what can I say. Couldn't resist. With my new Xena prop I simply had to be a warrior.
Our JVC camera was our buddy and did a good job. But ofcourse it is not so professional as with a filming crew. But you can see where Xena stood practising her swords play. I'm standing on that same place. The bushes are not all there anymore. Nature changed a bit since 1995 and we are now 12 years later..
Two other long views from the Miss Amphipolis hill. You have an outlook onto Bethells Beach.
You have now the view of the crucifiction place out of Destiny. But you will see that later on again when I come to the place down the beach it self.
BETHELL'S BEACH - THE STAR
THE FINALE OF THIS SITE. At Te Henga Beach a lot of scenes have been taken. You have already seen some of them here above. But here I show you some more interesting shoots versa our pictures.. They all are almost shoot just in front of the private walk track from Bethells Beach Cottage towards the sea. Then just in front of the Little Problem rock.
Although Te Henga offers a wide choice of possibilities they kept it all to the same location. Byt Te Henga is a STAR. You can take the same place with different angles of shooting and you get a total other scene. As the weather change during the whole day you can go from a very beautiful sunny scene into a storm and mysterious scene at the same place, same shoot, different weather = different view = different effect. Nature gives us that effect.
This picture gives you a perfect view of the filmlocation here a lot of scenes have been taken. Below you find them episode by episode but it all happened here, in front of those rocks and on this beach.
At Eve's baptising moment and the Gods Shooting Gallery.
All near the private walk track from Bethells Cottage.
Same place of Ulysses beach battle.
The picture on your rights show the end place of the Gods shooting scene.
The tents you see are used in a new film/show which was filmed at that moment.
Some kind of an army movie. So nothing to do with Xena but just to show you the place of filming scenes of Xena This is directly front of the Bethells Cottage track.
On the right side the places where Xena and Gabrielle stood to take the anding shoot of Motherhood. You can see this more clearly on the DVD I made. If you want a copy of our DVD, mail me.
The pictures on your right side are ours taken. The beach scenes have been taken on a very sunny day/moment. And indeed it really looks like that. Very brilliant, shining, sunny - a real paradise to be!
The third and last picture on the right is taken from Bethells Beach Cottage on the hill. It gives a super look out of the beach. We got every morning with this view.
Tsunami on the Te Henga beach on a very sunny moment. Lucky Lucy and Renee.
For Ten Little Warlords Gabrielle Calisto and Xena made the same walk here at the end of the episode, where Calisto changes back in our good old Xena.
At the end of The Bitter Suite the ocean took care of Xena and Gabrielle, both lying in this fresh cold water.
Hmm, wonder how they reacted on the cold water! Oh for Lucy the Kiwi no problem I guess. For Renée's athletic body no worries neither I think. Two perfect ladies for the perfect job.
A very interesting Blooper in the scene shooting is the life guard post. Every scene taken from this angle, in any episode has the life guard post in the background.
Look carefully at the crucifiction scene and the picture beside it. You find the life guard post all in the back.
On your right side you the place where Xena said her goodbye' s to Caesar.
In fact that scene is taken on the right side of the picture. On the DVD you have a more clearer view of that.
Night view versus sunny picture.
The misty screengrab is nothing but reality.
On sunny days with a lot of wind on the beach the waves are splashing up and you get this misty effect of the seawater in the air.
Spectacular effect made by nature.
The Chariot race on Te Henga beach. It must have been spectactular when you live near by the beach and you could look at all of these filming moments.
This chariot shoot has been combined with the same chariots race at the Wainamu Dunes and Lake. Go see the Wainamu site for more about it.
The place where Gabrielle lead the Amazones into the attack. Funny thing, there is no castle in front of them. Moreover the sand scenes later on in this episode have been take at the Wainamu Dunes. Get over to that section and see how they combined both locations to get the story done. It is only a small distance between Te Henga Beach and Wainamu.
For this episode a lot of extra efforts has been done. The scenes have been taken in combination with the sand dunes and sand plateau of Wainamu and with Bethells Beach.
The attack of the Amazones starts on the beach. They return from where they started the attack to end up in the Wainamu stream in front of the Dunes, to climb them and go further from there with the story. A lot of screen manipulation has been done. The castle is put onto the mountain that comes out onto Bethells Beach. The return of Varia after being kept prisoner is taken on Bethells Beach with Mountains of Wainamu in the background. Below I try to specify this picture by picture, screengrab by screengrab. This episode has taken a lot of work to put it together to show. For screencaptures at Wainamu please go to the Wainamu site. - VIDEO OF TE HENGA BEACH
No no no, no castle to see.
Marvelously put together ain't it.
At the Xena-shop site you can see an example of the maquette of a castle that has been used.
Watch no very carefully. The Amazones start attaching in front and behind the rock.
Later on they will return to that place to start the connecting scene at the Wainamu dunes.
The place where Xena came out of the water is just in front of the rock.
It is also a very good place to go body- surfing.
The Amazones didn't go forward but they took the right side to go to the beach dunes. On the left side you see the dunes where they ran too to hide from the catapults
If you look carefully you see behind the girls the space between the beach dunes and the rock where they started from.
Now they are going back. They are heading for the place where you see the tents on the left side picture.
The next scene taken where the Amazones climb up the sand dunes is taken at the Wainamu Dunes not far from the beach. For that go to the Wainamu site.
DISCLAIMER - POLICY
Loyaltoxena (former Lotolux) is a fan run, non-profit web site. All articles, images and other works are copyrighted to the original owners.
Loyaltoxena (former Lotolux) is a fan run, non-profit web site. All articles, images and other works are copyrighted to the original owners.
©2006/01/25 All rights reserved - Martine De Grauw
Bethells Beach Cottage site and Xena-Lucy-Land site created on 22/5/2007.
©2007/5/22 All rights reserved - Martine De Grauw