Lord Of The Rings Tours New Zealand

Lord of the rings was filmed in various locations in New Zealand. Locations used were on both the North and South Island. The places like the Hobbit village in Matamata near Rotorua, where you can visit on a guided tour. The tour is actually on private property as it’s a working farm. Wellington has various tours for the movie where many of the scenes were shot like the battle of Helms Deep.

The tours in New Zealand I went on started with the Rovers tour in Wellington that took you to locations within the city and outside. They take you past the company that Peter Jackson used to make the special effects for the movies. Weta now has its own shop where you can buy busts and figurines from the movies and has a display of the various things they have had in movies like The Frighteners and Black Sheep. Locations like Rivendell is actually a national park that has signage pointing you to the places filmed. The set for Helms Deep was actually a quarry.

The tour of the Hobbit Village is a guided tour that is on a farm. The movie and most likely the film the Hobbit will actually be filmed here. The location of the farm is actually on a road called Bagsend and wasn’t named because of the movie. The hobbit houses are visible and the only one you are able to enter is Bag End, Bilbo’s house although when they enter the house in the movie it is on the movie set and not the location. People have been known to turn up in full Lord of the rings costumes and spend their time dancing around the party tree

The south island tour I went on was outside Christchurch called the Edoras tour that takes you out to where Edoras is located and the great hall was actually built. There is nothing to see now as everything was taken down and returned back to where the location was originally before the set being built. This was a condition from the owners. There is a survey marker on Mt Sunday although if you look closely there are still nails embedded in rocks to show that something was left over from the movie. One funny thing that was notices was how close to Helms Deep Edoras actually was since they used the same set for shots as well.

In New Zealand there are plenty of tours to go on that will show not just the locations for the movies, but other scenic delights. Queenstown has a tour for the movies although I never got to go on that one although that would be a tour for next time. The tours are very informative and the guides are nice. Just don’t tell the Edoras guys that they forgot to charge me for my trip while in Christchurch.

Edoras Tour 

Hobbiton tours

Mt Sunday

Helms Deep