Wellington, Hutt City and the search for Rivendell

Wed & Thurs, February 16-17th:
Wednesday was pretty much a travel day as we made our way south from Tongariro down to Wellington, on the southern tip of the North Island.  We chose a route that kept us on the main highways as much as possible to speed up the driving.  However, we ran into lots of traffic and more road construction.  And the first third of the drive was one of the worst roads I've ever driven - more on that on a future post about our ratings of the roads here! Interesting note: We've noticed the road crews are often made up of older men, not just the young punks we use in Canada - wonder why?  We left Tongariro before 9 am and didn't arrive in Wellington until around 3pm.  Long driving day that's for sure.  Even better was that there was no accommodation left in Wellington that night, so we had to stay in Lower Hutt (or Hutt City), a bedroom community outside of Wellington, AND, we booked our hotel through an I-Site visitor centre (there's one in every town/city), and discovered they charge a booking fee to the hotel (and then to the customer) of 10-20%.  So we payed $130NZD for a dumpy hotel in Hutt City, that is $110 if you book directly. Oh well, at least we know that now.  The lady there did call around to a lot of hotels to find us something so I guess she earned it, and she booked our next night's motel in Wellington. Walked along the river through Lower Hutt in the evening, and lots of people were out jogging (everybody runs here) or walking their dogs off leash.

Thursday was a better day.  This was our search for Lord of the Rings (LOTR) sites and in the afternoon, a visit to the Te Papa museum in Wellington.  Wellington and surrounding areas were used extensively in the filming of LOTR movies, and they're at it again with The Hobbit now starting up. Everyone's just waiting for the director, Peter Jackson, to get over his ulcer.

Here's our independent tour of some LOTR sites:

Helm's Deep - Gravel Quarry outside Lower Hutt

- Helm's Deep (now a dry gravel quarry with limited access). Doesn't look like much now.

River Anduin location

- The Great River Anduin (part of a Hutt City park that runs along the Hutt River). The river is very low right now, so it's a little hard to imagine this scene.

- Isengaard (another Hutt City park).  This one stumped us - seriously looks like a lovely open space for a picnic, and there's a big playground with a zip line. Ummm, think they used a few computer graphics to make this look like a fortress for Saromen.

Rivendell in Kaitohe Park

- Rivendell - Forest of the Elves. Definitely the best LOTR site of the bunch.  This forest actually looked like it could be used in the movies, and is signmarked with info on the filming location.  Only a 10 minute walk from the carpark at Kaitoke Regional Park, you're in the middle of a forest that was used for Rivendell.  Even better, there was a film crew set up in a nearby parking lot, and we saw some actors dressed as medieval warriors.  We also saw a production crew setting up tents and props along the river. When we asked a crew member what film they were working on, he joked and said it was a little movie called The Hobbit, then he said it was actually a small scale movie about zombies or something.  Hmmmm, I wonder.