MIDDLE EARTH

of Conservation (and its predecessor), getting permits, writing the first helicopter safety guidelines, all the time protecting the landscape, even threatening to leave a location as one car company tore up the ground.

His work came to be in demand off shore, taking him to Turkey, Chile, African deserts, Wyoming, Papua New Guinea and many other countries working for the likes of Qantas and Jaguar.

Director Jeff Darling said Comer had ‘‘an eye that can run to the soul of a place that allows a visual story to ooze out onto the screen. Comer was our poet. He gave us a story to tell and a language to tell it with.’’

Before Peter Jackson had secured funding for Lord of the Rings, he had Comer on the payroll. Over time Comer ‘‘found’’ Mordor at Paradise, ‘‘discovered’’ Hobbiton on a farm near Matamata and ‘‘unearthed’’ Edoras on Mt Sunday, in the Rangitata Valley, South Canterbury. The site was said to be impossible to film in due to its remote location, but it was so perfect it was made to work.

It was while scouting for The Hobbit and with plans to work alongside Andy Serkis on second- unit photography that Comer discovered he was ill with a rare form of cancer and stepped aside.

Carey warns that A Place for the Heart is a tear-jerker.

Intensely personal but never overbearing, the love story of Comer and Carey, so closely tied in with their mutual love affair with Fiordland, weaves its way through the book. She drifts backwards and forwards sometimes talking directly to Comer, at others, to the reader. There is symbolism, and almost unbearable richness to their simply told story. Poignant, it sits heavily with the reader, reinforcing the sadness of Comer’s early death.

‘‘He wasn’t perfect,’’ Carey says. ‘‘He did have his faults. The fact that I had to wade through so much material – and I’ve still got the garage to deal with and I’ve still got the shed at Martin’s Bay – I don’t thank him for that. I thought that was decidedly unkind. And there were lots of things he hadn’t prepped me for but then doing any kind of preparation was an acknowledgement that he was on his way out.’’

Following his terminal diagnoses, the last year with Comer was difficult and writing the book became a way for Carey to deal with her grief.

‘‘It started as a ramble... the nub of an idea. Later everything quietly crystalised. I’ve always got a story to talk about the wilderness and the importance of the wilderness. His life seemed to encapsulate a lot of that. Yes, there was a slight mercenary aspect in terms of the commercial interest in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit but that kind of faded into the background.’’

Comer had the material for beautiful books but he was such a bloody perfectionist he would never have done that and he was so modest as well.’ PETA CAREY

A Place for the Heart is published by Potton and Burton and is available for $59.99