Be honest: did you choose for an internship abroad in New Zealand because of the Lord of The Rings or Hobbiton? You can tell us the truth as you won’t be the first person. An internship abroad is all about exploring and discovering, which is certainly possible at the Lord of The Rings Tour in Wellington! In a previous blog post, we mentioned a Lord of The Rings tour as one of the reasons to go to Wellington. We will take you to the half day tour around the filming locations of the best movie series ever made without spoiling too much.
The tour bus arrives at 10 am sharp. Everyone’s super excited: today, we are going to see Rivendell, Isengard and Helms Deep! The guide introduces himself as Ted. He’s a real expert and answers all our questions (which is a LOT) with enthusiasm and passion. You will like him. In the tour bus, there’s a television screen which provides us exclusive behind the scenes material.
“Fascinating” is an understatement. The creativity of Peter Jackson and his team does not have any boundaries. Unfortunately, some film sets were removed as they did not think the Lord of The Rings would be such a hit. They simply took them down after building these breathtaking sets. It almost makes us cry when we do visit the places where the film sets used to be. It makes us wonder how this could have been a massive film set; it just looks like a piece of nature. Ted tells us loads of fun facts, like the actors that had to pee in their costumes because it was too tight. Yuck! Obviously, we don’t want to spoil everything for you so what we do next will stay a secret. Just one little spoiler: you won’t even recognise the film sets. You will stand in front of nature reserves that have been filming sets and you will stand there in amazement. So how do you know what you’re actually looking at? Well, our tour guide has brought a booklet with screenshots of the movie. Very useful! Also, there are many photo moments to make everyone on Instagram jealous.
Not exactly related to Lord of The Rings – but fun anyway: you will also cuddle an alpaca. This fluffy animal is beyond excited to see us. Do you know how an excited alpaca sounds? Well, very unique, and super cute. It’s a must do to take selfies with the alpaca.
The most extensive part of the tour is Rivendell, home of the elves. If you feel like it, you can be an elf for a moment. Once again, you will recognise some parts of the movie here. We end the visit to Rivendell with a delicious picnic.
On the way back, we watch more behind the scenes material. This makes us, even more, a fan of the movies. We didn’t even know that was possible. Yes, this tour is absolutely a must do during your internship abroad in New Zealand. That is, if you’re a Lord of The Rings fan, of course. But who isn’t?!
We did the “Valley Movie Tour” via https://adventuresafari.rezdy.com/