Here’s my last installment of our December 2018 Lord of the Rings trip around New Zealand with Red Carpet Tours. I’ve been a little emotional writing about this trip because it was so special to me. Enjoy!
Pelennor Fields & Laketown.
Our first movie location that day was the iconic scene where King Theoden gave his speech to his men before battle. The woman that owned the land told us about how her fields became Pelennor fields and how it was swarmed by Uruk-hai. Years after filming, she found one of the Uruk-hai spears so she kept it so that people who go on Red Carpet Tours can have a photo op with it. My boyfriend got a little carried away with that!
After our photo-op, it was time to visit another local on the other side of Lake Pukaki. Farmer Ian. Farmer Ian is a person you have to experience, not understand. A colourful character, with equally matching colourful attire! His land was used in The Battle of the Five Armies as the ruins of Laketown after Smaug burnt it to smithereens. First, we had to tour Farmer Ians land… well… as I say you really need to see it, to believe it.
We were taken into his ‘man cave’ to see his inventions. This included a ferris-wheel for his cowboy boots, a mannequin he used to prank people, a mini steam engine, half a truck, half a car, a truck that pulls around theatre-style seating so he could pull us around his land… the list was endless.
The Day With All the Locations.
We visited several locations in one day. Pictured above is the Orc funeral pyre where Aragorn broke his toe, Nen Hithoel (where Sam and Frodo left at the end of Fellowship) and Fangorn Forest. One of my friends, Alex was brave enough to go swimming in Nen Hithoel! Hat’s off to you! We then made our way to Queenstown.
Queenstown.
Again, Queenstown was absolutely stunning! On our first night there we went to an ice bar together and a place where they had burgers the size of our faces!
A few of our friends were brave enough to do bungy jumping off the top of the Kawarau bridge!
After a heartstopping morning of watching people throw themselves off bridges, we stopped in Arrowtown for a meal, shopping and panning for gold. We were all emotionally preparing ourselves to say goodbye to eachother the following day. These wonderful people made our holiday incredible. We were in one of the most beautiful places on earth with people who just got us.
That night we had a cruise across Lake Wakatipu with wine and great company!
Doubtful Sound.
This was an optional activity for the last day of the tour. There were a bunch of options but we decided to go on Doubtful sound. It was the first time the group had been separated and it felt wierd! Doubtful sound was just beautiful.
Originally Jurassic Park was going to be filmed here, but they had to leave it due to the uncertainty of the weather. But you can totally see a T-Rex roaming those mountains! It took hours to get to Doubtful Sound because it’s so far away from everything else! It’s more than worth the journey. At one point they turned the engines completely off and asked everybody on the ship to stay silent so that we could appreciate the sound of nature in its full glory. It’s odd to think that we probably never experience true silence in our lives, there’s always something in the background – so this was a special treat. Peaceful beyond words. 
The Last Goodbye
That night was emotional. We’d become such good friends with everybody on the tour it was hard to imagine the rest of our journey without them. I cried alot over the next couple of days after realising we wouldn’t see them either ever again or in months and years to come. I want to extend a huge thank you to everybody on that tour. You were the most welcoming people I’ve had the fourtune to meet. I hope we remain in eachother lives and stay in touch frequently. If you ever pass through England, Tea is at four. You are welcome any time. Don’t bother knocking!
I bid you all a very fond farewell.
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