We started off from Masterton this morning down Rt. 2 which leads “directly” to Wellington about 100 km to the south. I say “directly” because only part of the road is direct. A substantial piece of the road winds crazily up, down and around every which way. There are more hair pin turns on this road than I have ever seen. It is narrow (two lanes) as well as windy (and windy as well in some places) with lots of truck traffic. In the Miata driving on the right side of the road, I would have had a ball, but driving a strange (and gutless) car on the wrong side of windy mountain roads with trucks barreling down on the wrong side of the road was truly unnerving. The scenery is unbelievably beautiful and I would have taken dozens of photos, but there is no place to stop. But in the end, we got to Wellington safe and sound and in time for our Lord of the Rings tour.
We were very fortunate as we were the only ones scheduled for this tour so we got a lot of individual attention from our guide. The first stop was Mt. Victoria which is right above Wellington. It was the location of the scene of the hobbits escaping from the ringwraith off a “cliff” (actually a 4 foot drop) in the woods. Before jumping off this “cliff” they were running through a cornfield which we had seen several days ago in Matamata. The scenery is incredible and hard to believe that it’s a stone’s throw from the city.
The second stop was at a quarry where they made the scenes in Minas Tirith, the heavily fortified capitol of Gondor.
The third stop was the best. That was where they filmed the scenes in Rivendell. That was located in Kaitoke Regional Park quite a way north of Wellington. There you will find Mr. & Mrs. Baggins frolicking in the woods and looking for orcs. We had a delightful picnic, a walk over the river on the rope bridge and a hike in the forest. After a couple of hours we returned to the city to pick up our car and return to Masterton.
Tomorrow we ferry over to the south island. That will take up most of the day, so I doubt there will be much to report. But we’ll see what happens.
Cheers,
Wayne & Peggy