Final full day in Wellington

---

After getting quite drunk the night before we had a bit of a lie in on our final full day in Wellington. Then at 1.30pm we headed out on the Lord of the Rings half day tour. I actually didn't really realise how much of the Lord of the Rings trilogy was filmed in New Zealand, but it seems pretty much all of it did.

We went up Mount Victoria, with our guide Rendall and visited spots where Frodo and the rest of the hobbits were in the first movie. Rendall, for me, was the highlight of the tour. He was hillarious, coming up with various stories of how the men on horseback (think they were called Raiths) could come flying down the hill side with only a moment's notice and that they can sometimes be mistaken for mountain bikes.

Seriously, this guy was crackers. But very very funny. He took us out to the Hutt Valey and beyond into some tropical rainforest to see where the set of Rivendell was. That was pretty amazing being in tropical rainforest for the first time.

Overally, Rendall does seem to be the steretypical New Zealander, someone who knows how to have fun, is funny himself and knows what he is talking about. They all care majorly about the environment, which is nice to see and are generally really nice people to be around.

After the tour finished (we were out from 1.30pm till about 6pm) we headed up to the Empire cinema in Wellington. This is where all the major New Zealand premiers of films get shown, including, back in 2001, the Lord of the Rings. Apparently over 140,000 people showedd up to see the stars walk down ana amazing amount of red carpet. The photos up on the wall obviously don't do it any justice.

We then headed up the hill to a Thai restaurant and had some good food. It looked like it was all about to kick off in there though as the owner and a lady from Cambodia seemed to be having a squabble, but we were out of there before anything more happened.

Early night tonight as we have to be up super early for the ferry transfer bus and finally over to the South Island. Picton and Nelson awaits our arrival.....

---