As many of you know, I’m a huge Middle Earth fan. Going to New Zealand had been on my bucket list for far too long, so back in December 2018, we went on a Lord of the Rings and Hobbit tour with an incredible bunch of people from all over the world. The tour was run by Julie from Red Carpet Tours.
The tour took us all over New Zealand, starting on the north island and ending on the south island. I’ve already done a little blog about visiting Hobbiton, I wanted to share our journey through Middle Earth on here. Take a look at the highlights…
Hobbiton
Hobbiton was a dream come true! It’s the most immersive movie set I’ve ever been on. You actually believe that the Hobbits have just run away whilst the tall people take a look around their village. Read more on my blog post here.
Trollshaw Forest
Everybody got their breakfasts from a cafe called the Fat Pigeon ready for our adventure into the hills to find Trollshaw Forest – Although truth be told, we were all still full to the brim from our Hobbit feast the previous night at the Green Dragon. As the coach went down the winding roads the landscape started to change drastically. The rolling hills started to feature volcanic plugs and other sheer rock faces. Suddenly the rocks got bigger and we were met with the awe-inspiring view of Trollshaw Forest. The land belongs to a small farm called Hairy Feet (renamed after filming). We had a stunning walking tour through the land and up to the cliffs. The tour started where Bilbo Baggins was told to take soup to Fili and Kili who were ‘looking after’ the ponies. We also saw the location where Sting is bestowed upon Bilbo for the first time and where the trolls were trying to cook the Dwarfs. After our tour, we had the opportunity to do a little shopping in the gift shop and play with swords from the films.
Wellington
Wellington was gorgeous- windy- but gorgeous! After seeing the secret entrance to Erebor and Gollums Fishing pool, we set out for Wellington. We all immediately went to go and make reservations at Viggo Mortensen’s favorite restaurant the ‘Green Parrot’, where, again, we ate until we could eat no more and drank until we could drink no more. Amazing! The following day we headed to the famous “Get off the road!” scene and hid from the Ring Wraith.
After that, we went to Wellington Airport to see the Eagles and Smaug!
We enjoyed a meal at the Roxy Theatre (owned by Sir Richard Taylor) and promptly booked tickets to see Mortal Engines the following night.
Okay, okay so now the moment we’ve all been waiting for: WETA!! WETA! Let that sink in… WETA!! We had a look around the shop before heading to the actual studios themselves. I couldn’t leave without buying the ‘No admittance except on party business’ sign to hang on our door along with other Middle Earth goodies. 
We were then treated to an exclusive tour around the props warehouse. We got to see a number of stunt weapons produced by WETA for various films. I even got to hold Sauron’s sword which never made it into the films, which is a shame because – WOW! We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the warehouse, I have loads of mental images though! After our tour, we were treated to a cocktail evening from the award-winning mixologist Ray Letoa and had prosthetic elf ears fitted.
Meeting Jed Brophy & Daniel Reeve
Jed Brophy was our first guest speaker of the day. He is so lovely, so entertaining and so down to earth! He told us about his story and how he got into acting. We then heard stories about the cast of LOTR and The Hobbit. For those of you who don’t know who he is (how? why?), here’s the picture that went viral of him after filming the Hobbit:
I loved hearing about all the pranks that went on behind the scenes, the impressions they did of each other and seeing him act out certain lines “What about them? They’re fresh!”.
After a fantastic morning listening to Jed, it was time to grab some lunch and then go to meet Daniel Reeve who did all of the famous calligraphy and illustrations for the movies.
Again, Daniel was such a lovely person to talk to. His stories were captivating and his illustrations even more so. My heart couldn’t stop beating when he wrote in my travel journal ‘There and back again, by:’ and then wrote our names in elvish. Even thinking about it now gives me goosebumps. We bought one of his Middle Earth maps that he signed for us, it’s now proudly hanging in our living room after we had it professionally framed.
At this point, the entire tour group had become fast friends and we were inseparable. We went out for an evening meal and saw our mixologist friend Ray back at the Roxy. We saw Mortal Engines and prepared ourselves for the ferry to the south island.
Please feel free to follow my blog using the ‘follow’ button or ‘follow via email’ option either at the right-hand side of this page or at the bottom of the page.
