Wellywood!

If anywhere represented Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, it would be Wellington. While it doesn't have the beautiful scenery expected when looking at Middle Earth, it is the home base for Peter Jackson and the Weta Workshop. The Weta Workshop was started with Peter Jackson, Richard Taylor, and his wife Tania Rodger, and is a 5 time Academy Award winner for the props, costumes, prosthetics, makeup, miniatures, and special effects it did for LOTR. And it was the main reason for my trip to Wellington.

Way back in June 2008, I went to Comic Con. Really nerdy I know, I don't even like comic books, I went for Twilight, which probably doesn't make it better. But despite all that, I was presented with an incredible opportunity to meet Richard Taylor at the Weta Workshop table. I kinda cried at first but once I was able to pull myself together was able to profess my love for Lord of the Rings and told him I loved the work he did for LOTR. Then when I told him I was going to come to New Zealand to study abroad, he gave me his business card and said to come by the workshop for a tour. Well, two years later, in current times, I emailed him and he said this would still be possible. So I set off for a weekend in Wellington before finals started.

Elyse and I arrived late afternoon. We were planning on staying with one of my fellow EAP kids and one of the girls from the first road trip while in Wellington but was unable to get a hold of her. This led to our search for a cheap hostel and some exploring in Wellington. We found the City in the Lodge, which from the outside looks super shady but wasn't really that bad once inside. Then it was off to dinner at Great India, which was really good. Then we went back to hang out and relax at the hostel.

The next day we were able to get a hold of Sarah and began our morning trekking up the giant hill to her house. Once we got to the top and settled in, all three of us went off for a breakfast adventure. This resulted in eating cookies before breakfast, which actually ended up being at lunch time anyway. After a good breakfast at the all day breakfast place, we went to check times at the Embassy Theater. This is where they held the Austrasian Premiere for the Fellowship, Two Towers, and the World Premiere for Return of the King. They were playing a NZ film called Home by Christmas so we decided to give it a shot at 5:30. We then went to the Te Papa museum which was free and had a lot of really cool exhibits.

Me in a traditional Maori Marai

Once we had thoroughly learned all we could, we went back to the Embassy for our movie. We got there early so we could run around in the theater and see all the sponsored seats by all the actors and such.
It was really awesome to know they had seen the movie complete for the first time in the same place we were. The movie turned out to be about the Kiwis fighting in WWII and was a bit documentary with some flashbacks acted out. It was very representative of the Kiwis attitude to life.

Just chillin in Liv Tyler's seat

After the movie we went to Coyote, a Mexican place for dinner and a beer. Then we began the trek back up the hill to Sarah's house where we chilled until late into the night.

The following day was when we had planned on the tour of the Weta Workshop. I made a few calls and left messages while we did some shopping and had an incredible breakfast at this place called Ernesto's. I had raisin french toast with apples on top while Elyse had berry pancakes. Overall fantastic. Then as we were attempting to find Parliament, I got the phone call I had been waiting for. We immediately hopped on a bus to Miramar and arrived at the Weta Workshop.

Upon entering, we had to sign confidentiality waivers before heading into the conference room. In front of me were not only figurines from almost every movie they have done, but the 5 Academy Awards they had won for the LOTR trilogy. Then it was on to downstairs. There we saw all the LOTR shields, armor, weapons, as well as things from their other movies as well. Overall it was really awesome going where so few have been before. We also found out early that Guillermo del Toro (the Hobbit Director) had quit that day. Then it was on to show Elyse the Weta Cave. While the tour was not what I expected, I still felt extremely grateful for the opportunity.

That night we made dinner with Sarah's housemates and had a fun night full of stuffed peppers, macrame, guitar playing and youtube videos. The next morning Elyse left early to get her haircut and I enjoyed sleeping in. Once she was back, we decided to head to Parliament. We fortunately got there right on the hour and was able to get a tour of the Parliament building. Then right after our tour was over, the house had just started a debate and we could go in and watch it. It was fascinating to see how small there House was compared to ours. They all sat there joking and yelling out of turn and even talked about issues relevant to us. We got so wrapped up in the excitement, we realized we had to be at the airport in 30 minutes and had to still go back up the hill to get our bags before catching a bus.

The Trolls from the Hobbit/Fellowship of the Ring in the Airport

There was no way we were going to make it so instead we caught a cab up, grabbed our bags and took a cab to the airport. We made our flight without any problems because of how laid back the airport security is. Overall the weekend was a perfect break from Lincoln and was everything I could have hoped for.

Heres a link to the photos on facebook!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=182090&id=665896295&l=985eeeccef

The Best Day of My Life

Clearly the title states it all. After having the best breakfast I've had yet in New Zealand at this cute cafe, we wandered aimlessly in Wellington. While my initial opinion of Wellington was negative because it was so early when we arrived and it was incredibly windy, it is actually an adorable city. The architecture was really neat and had a mix of a lot of styles.

We eventually ended up at the Te Papau Museum, which was perfect since it was free and we had time to waste. It ended up being one of the coolest museums I've seen. It was really interactive and I think we spent most of our time going through all these pictures and videos of New Zealand you could look at. Despite being about a decade older than their target audience, I had an amazing time. In two hours, we had only covered the bottom floor and there were more exhibits to see. I wish I had had a week to check everything out, but we had an appointment.

We walked to our pickup location where I unpatiently waited. Once we saw the van pull up with Wellington Movie Tours on the side, I knew that this was going to be a fantastic day. The group I was with kept laughing at me because I was so excited, I had a goofy grin glued to my face. Thats right everyone, we were going on a Lord of the Rings Tour!

I knew immediately that it was going to be so much fun. Right off the back, the tour guide and I began swapping trivia as he drove up the windy roads to Mt. Victoria. This was location for all the scenes when the Hobbits are escaping Hobbiton from the Black Riders. First stop was a small cliff which they used for the hobbit's perspective looking down at the Black Riders coming to Weathertop. It was also used in the 3rd film for Dunharrow when Aragorn and Theoden are surveying the Rohan camp. Not too exciting yet, but was still fairly cool. Next, he shows us a scene on his laptop from the extended version (which I am quite familiar with) when Frodo and Sam are leaving the Shire. Then, he pulls out a frying pan and two pipes, exactly like the one in the film and says "Who wants to be Sam and who wants to be Frodo". The nerd inside me explodes.

We take turns being both before heading to the shortcut to mushrooms scene. We all pile exactly like all the hobbits when they escape from Farmer Maggot, in the exact spot Elijiah, Sean, Billy, and Dom had all been, even including the broken carrot. Farther down the road was the "Get off the Road!" scene, and the hiding from the black rider in the roots of the tree scene. Unfortunately the tree in that scene was artificial, but it wasn't difficult to imagine. We also turned Cayla, Lannette, and I into a Black Rider at the top of a hill, which was quite clever. Then it was back to the car.

Seeing the exact trees and spots for filming was amazing, but next we were heading to somewhere I had been dreaming about for years; the Weta Workshop. At this point I was literally bouncing in my seat and had to get a stern look from Cayla to calm down a bit. We arrived at the Weta Cave and walked in to see Lurtz to my left (hes the big Uruk kai who kills Boromir in the first film. To my right, Gollum. I was definitely in my geekdom heaven. There were props and costumes and puppets and books galore. I couldn't take it all in at once. We watched a behind the scenes of Weta movie where I recognized some people from the DVD appendices. After that, I had a great chat with one of the workers in the cave who had been in the film and shared my love for Alan Lee's artwork (Conceptial artist for LOTR). I was strongly encouraged (peer pressured) into buying Arwen's evenstar since they had been discontinued and I had wanted one for years. I was the last person in the cave and was rushed out to finish our tour.

We drove by the beaches where the inspiration for Shelob's lair was found and headed back into Wellington. We drove past the location for the premiere and I pictured what it must have been like with all the people and the red carpet. It was truly a great tour and cost less than it was worth. I look forward to making another stop at the Weta Workshop before I leave New Zealand.

We went out that night before we had to catch our ferry at 2:30. It was nice to put on makeup and be girly for the first time in a week. We had fun before we headed to load our car onto the ferry. This is when I get really stressed. We had apparently lost our confirmation number, were supposed to be there an hour before instead of a half hour, and we weren't being allowed on. The other car was already there and had to come back to help us. After what seemed like eternity, we figured it out and threw everyone in the car as we raced down the ramp to the ferry.

Once on board, I found a nice corner in the play area, curled up, and fell asleep. We awoke on the south island at 5:30 in the morning, drove long enough to find a park, pulled out sleeping bags and went to sleep. We got a few more hours in before the long drive to Christchurch.

Heres a link to all the pictures from the Tour, there are some pretty good ones.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=156750&id=665896295&l=adcb9da96b