Geek Day

Mon, Nov 16, 2009
Upper Hutt, North Island

We spent the night in Isengard, then napped in Rivendell. Really. Turns out the motor camp we stayed at in Upper Hutt (a suburb of Wellington) abutted the park where several scenes of Lord of the Rings were shot. In fact, the little towns of Upper and Lower Hutt saw a fair amount of filming, so we dedicated today to being geeky LOTR fans and went on pilgrimage. We saw The Gardens of Isen (where Gandalf walks with Sauron), the river where they filmed the scene of the fellowship passing down the river as they leave Lorhlorien, and drove into the quarry where the scenes of Helm’s Deep were shot. The lady at the I-site (the great information centers that are all over NZ) showed us photos of the set building that was done in the quarry and how they created the fortress. From there we went up into Kaitoke Regional Park, otherwise known as Rivendell. Kaitoke really looked like Rivendell. Very pretty.

We also learned a bit more about some of the filming locations on the South Island and were not surprised to learn that the Southern Alps and Western coastline were The Misty Mountains and Fangorn Forest – they sure felt that way as we were driving through them.

We are beginning to understand that NZ is a country uniquely suited for The Lord of the Rings. Although the sets are long gone, it takes very little imagination to picture yourself traveling through Middle Earth here. Every turn of the road presents us with a view that has us saying, oh yes, I can just picture Sam and Frodo doing this or that.

We know that scenes of the Shire and Hobbiton were also filmed on the North Island, closer to Auckland, but we won’t be driving that way, so will miss the $100 a pop trip to the farmer’s field to see what used to be Hobbiton. Ummm… I think we would have passed on that anyway. We met a couple on their honeymoon who ponied up the cash and really enjoyed it, but we figure they were starting on the North Island and had no idea of how much awaited them on the South Island yet.

So although we didn’t set out to specifically visit any LOTR sites, they just sort of popped up in our itinerary and made for a fun little diversion. We are so curious to watch the movies again. We will certainly be seeing them with new eyes!