Wellingtons's beautiful car park tour...

Ah, it wasn't as bad as all that. But my tour of Lord of the rings filming location mostly consisted of the wonderful (but ordinary) trees of Wellington, accompanied by screen shots of where they were shown in the film. We weren't actually given any time to look around the more attractive locations, but were given an abundance of time to pose in front of various trees wearing elf ears (an activity I chose not to partake in) and given a running commentary by our guide who insisted on pointing out various things in the landscape and claiming they were the work of modern day Wizards or Orcs. (For example, apparently Wizards now use frizbees to help practice their spell casting aim.)
All in all the highlight was lunch (menu below) which was rather lovely!
There were four women on the tour who were only in Wellington for the day off their cruise and hadn't even seen lord of the rings, goodness knows what they thought! Though they seemed less disappointed than myself!
I will show you some photos and you can decide for yourself! (I'll even include a photo of William, Tom and Bert in the Te Papa museum!)
All this happened yesterday, and was followed by a patch of sheer panic and then a lovely dinner with my hosts and the young couple who have been staying here also (I say dinner, they had dinner and I made my own food, but I sat with them...)
Anyway, Christchurch tomorrow! But what about TODAY I hear you call! Well, today was so utterly mind numbingly exciting I need a day to compose myself. Night night!!

There's always been a Baggins, living here under the Hill in Bag End. And there always will be...

Well then, lets see if you can guess what THIS one's about!! I got up at 5.30am, (yes that's right, it exists!) and got the coach. We travelled through the slightly dull countryside which always seemed to look better through the windows on the other side of the coach! We stopped of in the town of Cambridge, the equestrian centre of... I don't know, New Zealand? Waikato? The North island? ...of somewhere anyway. I learnt there is a Maori king and there are 53 old volcanos in Auckland. (such as Mt Eden where I'm staying.) we travelled for about two hours before stopping at a disappointing gravel car park in the middle of nowhere with a few small, un exciting buildings. There we go on another bus with a new guide and THAT'S where it turned into PURE MAGIC (no exaggeration). Have you ever been so overwhelmed buy something good or bad that happened that you don't tell anyone because there's now way you could ever convey how big and important it is to you? Yes? No? Well that's the situation, right here, right now. So all I will say is I will be coming back here, and the Green Dragon/bridge/water mill was the best! (Huge understatements!)
Enjoy the photos, I have about 100.
Lisa, I thought of you a lot! You would love it, I hope you like the photos.
(The Green Dragon was made more fantastical with the addition of beautiful fiddle music and an earthenware mug of fiery Ginger beer!)