The Great Walk of Lord Of the Rings

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New Zealand is famous for its stunnign scenery and National Parks where there are great walks to hike through from Milford Sound's wliderness and lakes to Abel Tasman's coastline of turqouise-blue bays and beaches. These great walks cover anywhere from 40K to 150K and take several days to complete. I got the chance to see a bit of the Abel Tasman and Milford Sound area but no one told me about the Great Walks of the Lord of the Rings. My journey started in Wellington on a dreary day with winds 70 mph. There were guided tours that covered the LOR areas I visited but I figured it would be easy to access and walk to these locations myself...little did I know what I was getting myself into!? The city of Wellington is home to LOR director, Peter Jackson, and served as the production center. At the beginning of the day I walked to the city center to see a few LOR landmarks including the Te Papa museum with a special exhibiton, the Embassy Theater which showed the wolrd LOR premiere, the dragon on top of the city cinema, and several popular hangouts with the cast memebers. Not a bad walk...then to take a hour train ride to Upper Hutt. Once off the train I had to catch a bus to Harcourt Park; after asking 7 drivers if their bus took me to my destination, I finally found one. Not really knowing where I was going or when to get off, I managed to pass up my stop. Harcourt Park was used to film scenes from Gahdalf and Sauman meeting after the rediscovery of the ring at Hobbiton and Saruman's lair. It ws a beautiful walk through the lush greeenry and gardens.
My next stop was over to the Hutt River where I got a bus back to the railway station and walked from there. My walk was longer than it seemed on the my map walking through tiny neighborhoods, the industrial area of Whakatiki, and then risking my life to cross over the River Road highway. Finally, made it to the Hutt River spot where the filming of the fellowship of the River Anduin took place. Needless to I was 2 Kilometers from the railway station and a the winds and storm was becoming worse. I figured it was time to make my way back before I got stuck. Coming back to the railway station, my train passed me up leaving me in the rain and cold. Eventually, i made my way back to Wellington and decided to end todays LOR journey though I knew there was more to see. did I mention that it took me 2 days just to get down to Wellington because of the closed roads and flodding due to the worst storm in 50 years.
As I traveled through the South Island of NZ I was able to visit a several more LOR spots with a little help from my location guidebook. Everywhere in NZ gives you the LOR atmosphere and in order to really get around to the specific sites, you should have a car. You could always follow my routes to the Great Walks of LOR; my journey covered skydiving over Lake Taupo serving as the base of the volcanic plateau (Mordor), jet boating the Wilken River to Mt. Aspiring Park (opening sequence of the Twon Towers), driving along the 550 K long Southern Alps (Misty Mts), hiking of Franz Joseph Glacier (Lighting of the Beacons), and flying over the Kawarau River (pillars of the kings), the Remarkables (Dimrill Dale), and Greenstone Valley (Amon Hen).

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Photos

Embassy theater
Wellington's LOR World premiere took place here