For Tolkien Nerds Only (just kidding, this is for everyone)

Worlds Elsewhere photo journal: comprehensive photos of our adventures

Instagram: @worldselsewhere

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As I write, we are in Tasmania, having left New Zealand a few days ago. Before posting on Tasmania (which already promises to be a land of superlatives), I wanted to fling out a bonus post on our NZ adventures in Tolkien land.

Anyone who knows us, knows we are Lord of the Rings nerds (nerds in general, yes, but especially LOTR and Star Wars nerds). It was therefore a highlight of our NZ travels to visit some of the sites that Peter Jackson brilliantly utilized to bring Middle Earth to life.

Our first stop on this quest was Hobbiton, a small hobbit village created for the movies on the 1250 acre Alexander farm (that also houses 8000 sheep and 400 head of Angus cattle). Hudson, having fallen asleep on the drive, awoke in the distinctly hilly terrain and sleepily queried: “When did we cross into Middle Earth?”

In 1998, the LOTR location scout flew over the farm and knocked on the Alexanders’ door to ask if he could look around. The owner, annoyed at the interruption during his weekly TV rugby, brusquely told the scout to go ahead, just shut the gates so as not to screw up the sheep herds. The farm, with its lake, huge tree in the middle and surrounding rolling hills, was perfect!

Bilbo held his eleventy-first (111th) birthday party in the clearing beneath the large tree.

I gasped as we walked in - it was The Shire come to life. Each hobbit hole has been painstakingly crafted to reflect its resident’s occupation (potter, beekeeper, lumberjack, blacksmith, etc.), some even had laundry hanging on the line, and I half-expected to see a hobbit emerge, grumpily ask why we were traipsing about, but then, if we asked nicely and were lucky, perhaps invite us in for elevenses.

Peter Jackson’s famous obsession with detail was evident in small but big ways: the tree over Bilbo’s residence is fake and has thousands of leaves that were hand-tied to the branches, so that the correct leaf colors would always show.

Hobbit laundry was hung daily on the lines manually for weeks so that the paths to the lines would have been trod by feet to give an authentic feel.

Hobbiton’s cheesemaker displays his wares.

On the South Island, we took a helicopter ride to Kahurangi National Park to visit two of the fellowship’s memorable stops, filmed on Mt Olympus and Mt Owen. Mt. Olympus served as the area south of Rivendell where the nine members of the fellowship - Aragorn, Boromir, Gandalf, Gimli, Legolas and the 4 hobbits - run under rocks and small trees to hide from the flock of crebain, Saruman’s avian spies. Mt. Owen provided the exit from the Mines of Moria where the distraught group mourned the death of Gandalf during his battle with the Balrog.

Hudson atop a rock that protected the hobbits from being spotted by Saruman’s spies.

Boromir began to teach the hobbits how to sword fight here, just before the crebain swooped overhead.

With orcs close behind, the surviving fellowship members could not linger to enjoy the beautiful views outside the exit to Moria.

Our last stop in New Zealand was at Jens Hansen The Ringmaker in Nelson; Hansen crafted the One Ring for the movies. We admired the large-size version used for filming close-ups and checked out his other creations (Hudson scored an amethyst ring for his birthday). Having narrowly escaped the ring’s seductive pull, we drove to the airport, sad to say goodbye to the truly magical country of New Zealand.