To Middle-Earth and Back Again

I have just come back from the best holiday I have ever had! I went on a Red Carpet Tour to New Zealand that included nearly every site used in the film.

I just had to share my joy with the board

Hobbiton, Mt Doom, River Anduin, Isengard, Rivendell, Lothlorien, Edoras, Helms Deep, Rohan Village, Pelennor Fields, Amon Hen, and more!

Also met people like the horse trainer who was one of the Black Riders and Daniel Reeve the Calligrapher, we also met Tania Rodger out side Weta Workshop. She said that Richard Taylor was sorry he could not meet us and show us Lurtz in reception, but he had just left to go to London.

I even did a Bungy and the man who tied me was the same one that tied Orlando Bloom when he did his!

We also staid in one of the hotels the cast used I was in Sean Astins Room. We even were allowed to look inside the room that PJ used Called The Mansion. This was massive it had two bathrooms six beds and bar.

I’ve put a few pics on if anyone would like to see

<a href="https://uk.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/[email protected]/album?.dir=/b9ea&.src=ph&.tok=phSBijDBJJBY6n9o" target="_new">Pic's</a>

Very cool, thanks for sharing with us. :gala

Very cool!! Sounds like you had the time of your life or the time of being a fans life. I would love to go on that kind of a tour someday!!!

WOW!! Very envious, and thank you so much for sharing. WetaWidow and I hope to one day be as lucky as to be able to take that tour.....

Thanks for sharing!!

BigHose :hat

Great pictures. Looks like an awesome trip.

Where can the rest of us get info on that tour?

https://www.redcarpet-tours.com for all the info.
This is the only tour I know were you get to meet people that worked on the films. Anwen was one of our guides she appeared as a Rohan refugee at Edoras! All the guides and people we met were great and helpful. I am hoping to go back in a few years. The owners of hobbiton say they are trying to get new line to let them completly restore it. Thats when I want to go back

all i can say is...

Those pics were too cool. I recognized many of the locations immediately. Must have been one amazing trip. Congrats.

RE

WOW!!! that looked like it was an amazing trip. I think i recognized 95% of the locations you took pics of.

Congrats on a once in a lifetime trip.

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WOOOOOOOOOW

Thanks for sharing the pics STB

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cool, thanks for sharing :bliss .

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Oh Man! That is just too cool!
I am sooooo wanting to go there!

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Outstanding. Thanks for sharing with us.:toast

Re: RE

I was travelling New Zealand, too, last year in November.

We were only travelling the North Island, but there are a lot of great LotR sites you can visit. We didn't do a guided tour, but travelled on our own. There is a great guide book, "The Lord Of The Rings Location Guidebook" by Ian Brodie that I would recommend to anybody that plans to travel NZL with LotR in mind.

All the filming locations are great, but the most astonishing to me were the Putangirua Pinnacles, where the the scenes in the "Paths of the Death" (?) were shot; the top of Mt. Ruapehu (Mt. Doom) where the Mordor Scenes were shot and of course, the only remaining set, Hobbiton.

I will share more information on my homepage which I'm currently working on!

In fact, this trip was what started my "addiction" for LotR and the Weta Collectibles!:bang2

My favourite site or sites

My favourite site or sites were Hobbiton and Edoras. Edoras was great you drive up in the coach and right away you see this big hill in the middle of nowhere. Then you cross three rivers to get to the hill were Edoras was built. One of the rivers comes well past your knees!
We also went on the Nomad Safaris; I went in their fantastic shop.

This is were you realise just how bad your obsession has got when you have all the stuff there! I did buy a few bottles of SobeRing Thought the 1% beer the hobbits drank. Going to Ford of Bruinen was great because we had to go by helicopter “heliworks”. This was great because a BBC film crew came along to film use. We used two helicopters the BBC landed first, with three over people from the tour so they could film one landing. Then the one I was on went over the top of the rest of them standing watching. They also wanted to film someone do a Bungy, so I said I would do it! So look at for that on the telly!

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I also went to Roger's Tatooart to get my nine tattoo the sam place The Fellowship had theirs done.

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Sounds like an awesome trip Samwise! I went with my family back in january, and went to a few of those places as well. Edoras was definetely my favourite place. The view from the top of the hill was spectacular. And Deer Park heights in Queenstown is a great and in-expensive way of seeing I think from memory about 9 different scenes from the Two Towers.
I remember in Arrowtown I wandered down the stream to take a look at where the Ford of Bruinen was shot, I didnt think the water was so deep so I started walking and before too long I was knee deep in water.
Another great spot in Queenstown is the Ithilien Encampment where Sam and Frodo saw the Oliphaunts. Very cool.
I didnt enjoy the North Island tours as much though the Wellington one was quite enjoyable.
Glad you had a fantastic trip!

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I've just finished reading Sean Astins very self-obsessed book this morning, and read about the fellowship tattoo and that originally they wanted to keep it a secret so no-one else would get felloship tatoos but them, but I don't blame you for doing it, I would maybe do it too, and from the same guy who done theirs! Wow, did it hurt as much as Sean Astin said it does?
Wow, what a great trip, and thanks for sharing your photos. I really have to go out there someday. How did it feel to stand in the pelennor fields! Or to stand in Bag End or ontop of Edoras! Windy up there I bet. And was Isengard just the forest where Saruman and Gandalf walked in FOTR? The one where the infamous picture was taken of those two plus PJ.

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Hi FrodoEyes the Tattoo was fine I thought it would have been bad but it was ok. I wasn’t really interested at first never thought about getting one before but a few people in our fellowship wanted to get them. So when you’re in a group that get along so well you end up wanting one. We got the design from the calligrapher who done the design for the cast and took it down to Roger the guy that Tattooed the cast. Roger said that it was the best one he had seen that looked like the one he did for the cast. He said that nobody has asked him to do if before and he has the copy of the design but does not use it even if people ask. One of the other people on the tour never got the nine they got the prancing pony in elvish.

The top of Edoras was very wind no idea how they managed to build a set. The big thing I noticed was how small it was?

Something I never knew has there is a grave of an old sheep dog on the hill. And the farmer told them they could film there only if they never disturbed the grave. So they built the bell tower around it so nobody could touch it!

I could not get the smile off my face when I was standing at the door at Bag End and at the Party Tree.

“And was Isengard just the forest where Saruman and Gandalf walked in FOTR? The one where the infamous picture was taken of those two plus PJ”.

Some scenes of Isengard were shot in this park. If you never knew it was filmed there you would walk right past! There is a field surrounded by tree’s were there is a line of grass that is lighter than the rest that goes into the centre of the field. This was used in the scene when Gandalf rides down a path to Orthanc. You then go up a little bank were the scene were Saruman and Gandalf walked in FOTR? The one where the infamous picture was taken of those two plus PJ.

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And was Isengard just the forest where Saruman and Gandalf walked in FOTR?

Click to expand...

The location of that shot is Harcourt Park in Upper Hut near Wellington:

The scene from the movie:



...and how it looks today:



There are certainly places where you can feel the spirit of the movies better than this one, it's just an ordinary park today - if you don't know what to look for ;-)