Rivendell

Yesterday we took another day trip out of the city - this time north about 45 minutes to Kaitoke Regional Park, which served as the filming location for Rivendell in the Lord of the Rings movies. A little windy but sunny and with several extremely scenic walks through the forest.

Had mini-buses from 3 different tour companies there when we arrived - all of them specializing in LOTR tours, but once they left we pretty much had the place all to ourselves.

Rita among the elves


In the middle of Rivendell


The forest walks were quite scenic - spectacular in places, and the trails were in great shape. Rita calls them Disneyland trails because they're so well groomed and maintained that they call to mind the ones on Tom Sawyers Island in the Disney Parks. It's Springtime here and the beech leaves are falling. They covered the trail with a soft layer that made it even more of a pleasure to walk on.

On the trail

As always the forests here are full of the various kinds of tree ferns which make every walk exotic - like tramping thru Jurassic Park. The country is getting to be popular with other film makers because of that and, aside from the LOTR trilogy, New Zealand forests have served as the backdrop for other movies such as the most recent version of King Kong and the prequel to LOTR now filming here - the Hobbit. Wellington is the center for the movie industry in NZ. The production studios are here and apparently the big shots (Peter Jackson and the rest) all live on Oriental Bay and the Owhiro peninsula south of the city...the scenic area we drove around just the other day.

AS they open the ferns sort of spiral out from a fist - a natural design that figures prominently in Maori art going back several centuries.