The Black Lung has a Wizard Fight, Part 2: We become Peter Jackson's Neighbors!

Day 2 of New Zealand started way too early, and it's not because we had to drive to Wellington. It's because the wonders of jetlag and the 17 hour time difference (that changed to 18 hours once Daylight Savings started? ended? partway through the trip) had me waking up at 4:30 in the morning. Le sigh. I did adjust to the time pretty much by the next day though. And the early start gave me time to get all the way ready and have a leisurely and delicious breakfast of orange chocolate muffins (so good-we ate them a lot while I was there, and I have not ever seen them here. I will have to start haunting store bakeries), super creamy chocolate milk, and feijoa juice. Feijoas are apparently a fruit that is very popular in New Zealand, but not in season in November. The juice is super good though.

After breakfast, we were off to Wellington! It's about a two hour drive from Leah's house, but we had an appointment at 9, so we left a bit early. Then, of course, the drive went great and we got there way early. So we walked around the harbor near Te Papa, which is the national museum of New Zealand. We didn't really get to go there, because it was closed before our 9:00 pickup and was closing pretty soon after we got back in the afternoon, but it looks very cool. I would love to get it next time I'm there. Anyhow, the first thing we noticed about Wellington is that it's windy! I have never actually been to Chicago, but our tour guide did say that Wellington really ought to have the name The Windy city, and I couldn't disagree. We about blew away several times.

 If you let the wind blow into your eyeballs, your hair will stay out of your face!

I tried to lean as far forward as this statue, but the wind kept blowing me back.

But at 9, our ride arrived! Yes, it was our full day Lord of the Rings tour! Right away we noticed that our tour guide was Irish. But he was also a very knowledgeable Wellingtonian, so that was fine by us. The tour was him driving us to various locations in and around Wellington where LOTR was filmed. I already mentioned in part one, but it bears repeating that I am a huge LOTR fan. I love the books, I love the movies, I mourn the lost potential of the Hobbit trilogy (short version-it shouldn't have been a trilogy! There was not enough story for that much screen time, and it was boring). So when Leah said we could do half day or full day, I said "Full day!!! Please." It was definitely a good choice.

We started off with maybe 12 people on the tour. First our guide drove us to Mount Wellington lookout, which has truly awesome panoramic views of the city. Also, people who live up there must be nuts, because the hills up to the houses are too steep for walkways, so they have these cable cars that go up the hills at certain points. Looking at them made me feel a combination fear of heights and small spaces that would be exponentially greater if I actually had to get in one. But it's a really pretty city. Fun fact that we learned-Peter Jackson used trickery to get New Line to agree to filming in Wellington by saying it has an international airport. Technically, this is true, but it only flies to Australia and Fiji. Also, the runway ends at the sea, so I feel it would be somewhat stressful to fly there.

 Panoramic view from the top of Mount Victoria

With the city in the background. Also, still so windy!

After we left the lookout, we went to the first filming location, which is some woods on the side of the mountain. These are woods which are planted with some kind of fur tree not indigenous to New Zealand and therefore kind of scraggly looking from fighting the wind, which makes them fun and creepy for the scenes of the hobbits running from the Nazgul!

 Right behind me is where the hobbits roll down the hill while running from that farmer!

 Hobbitses hiding from a Nazgul! In the movie, they had a fake tree stump on this spot. Also, these are other tourists, I think from Australia, to make up our 4 hobbits.

 Nothing in particular filmed here, I just think I look nice.

Imagine a ring wraith right there! I just watched the movie yesterday, and I totally recognized the area from the scene.

We also learned here about the scourge of the possum. They are not the same as opossums, which we have here in the US. In fact, they're pretty cute. But they aren't indigenous to New Zealand (more on non-native species in another post!), and they eat a boat load of vegetation every night. They're basically destroying the bush, so currently New Zealand is trying to poison the heck out of them, which is controversial to say the least.

After that, we went to WETA, the prop/special effects place. We got to see all sorts of awesome things that they've made, and touch some of it. They also showed us some cool stuff about the history of the company. They have done a lot of movies besides Tolkien ones. All of it is very impressive and cool and some of it is way gross. I wasn't very excited by the horror movie stuff. We were only allowed to take pictures in the lobby, but even that stuff was cool.

 This dwarf guards the entrance to the no pictures area.

I met Gandalf!

At the end of WETA, which is incidentally named after a gross bug that is from New Zealand, the half day tour people left, and there were only 5 of us left: Leah and myself, plus 3 Canadian guys who I think worked together and were in New Zealand for some sort of government conference thing. They were pretty hardcore LOTR people too, and we had a pretty good time with them. We had lunch at a really cute little restaurant along the coast, which is also on the road that Peter Jackson lives on. Our guide only told us which house it was when we were past it, and I couldn't find it again to save my life, but it was still pretty cool.

Across the street from the restaurant. It was really a beach road, which Peter Jackson also lives on. 

Next we headed to a park outside of the city which is where some of the river scenes were filmed. On the way there, I also saw an LDS chapel, so that was thrilling. The river was kind of hard to recognize at first, until you realize that the shot was mirrored (I think?) so that the cliffs were on both sides of the water instead of just one. Then it was pretty easy to visualize those creepy Urukhai chasing our heroes as they canoed away. I also made friends with a dog there!

Imagine an elf canoe, and creepy dudes chasing you through the woods. Not pictured: my dog friend.

I found a picture of my dog friend!

Minas Tirith and Helm's Deep were right here. Kinda hard to visualize, yes? I get Helm's Deep, but Minas Tirith? Must be magic.

We also drove past a quarry which was the site of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith. You can't actually go up there anymore, the quarry people get mad at you. But we looked at it! Then we went to the park where Saruman lived! There was some sort of Highland festival going on, so we could hear bagpipes the whole time we wandered around. This is where we got to have wizard fights. Our tour guide regularly stashes large branches in the foliage for people to have mock fights with, which is awesome and hilarious. We also learned that the magestic mountains in the background of Saruman's house are actually on the South Island, but they often would composite those things on because the locations down there were a lot harder to get to.

 Saruman's tower was right there. And I think that white spot was the tent with the bagpipers.

 Just two wizards, walking in Saruman's garden, talking about how the one ring is totes evil. 

 Hey wait, one of the wizards is totes evil, too!

 That escalated quickly.

Friends again! This was a super giant tree behind us. 

Our final stop of the day was the location for Rivendell, which is one of the beautiful sets in the movie. It was filmed in Kaitoke Regional park, which is a super beautiful place even without Rivendell. The first thing we did when we got there was eat some muffins, but then we went across this awful swinging pedestrian bridge to see the native bush. 3 of our group, including Leah, thought this was great fun. Myself and one of the Canadian guys did not think this was fun. We thought it was terrifying. I also thought I would throwup and die while crossing it. But I didn't!

After that, we went across a normal, not scary bridge and saw a family of eels living in the middle of the river! They came out from this giant rock, and it was super cool and somewhat gross. Eels are weird looking, man. Across the bridge and into the woods a little ways is Rivendell. There is actually a sign and an arch put there by the park, mostly because tourists kept looking for it and wandering off into the bush and getting lost. Amazingly enough, almost the entire Rivendell set was built practically, even though they were just going to tear it down after they finished filming. It was very cool to be there, even though the sets are long gone. Our tour guide also had a hobbit cloak and a replica of Sting, so we had some awesome photo ops and talked about the dreaminess of Legolas. I definitely have grown into an Aragorn person, but there's no denying the appeal of Legolas. He's just so cool! And that hair!

 Evil bridge of death!

Background, evil bridge of death. Foreground, eel rock! 

Welcome to Rivendell, hobbits!  

Meredith and Sting, ready to take on some orcs.

Then it was time for our tour to end. We just chilled in the van, talking about everyone's future plans (us-road trip, Canadians, end of business trip) until we got back to Te Papa. We did go in for a few minutes to use the facilities, but it was almost closing time, so we decided to head back to Leah's. We stopped at a really cool rocky beach on the way back, and did not fall into any tide pools. And we got back to Leah's in time to rest up for our road trip.

At the beach, still windy!

Laters!

Next time, on The Black Lung: KIWIS!!!