New adventures in New Zealand

EXPLORE a fantastical land through wild, wet coastlines, mountain deserts, past crater lakes and volcanoes for your own Middle-earth adventure.

Middle Earth: A doorway looks onto the Hobbit film set Picture: Lonely Planet Traveller

IN NEW Zealand, there is a peculiar clarity to the sunlight. On a bright day, everything is thrown into high contrast. Highlights blaze; shadows are cast very, very dark.

The effect makes the grass that covers the hills of North Island appear greener than grass anywhere else in the world.

When director Peter Jackson decided to shoot The Lord of the Rings films in New Zealand, he knew that his native land could provide landscapes so spectacular that in many cases they would need little camera trickery to become the fantastical Middle-earth locations described by J.R.R. Tolkien.

They already looked just right.

In the author's classic fantasy books, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, most adventures begin in Hobbiton  - home to a diminutive humanoid race, the hobbits.

For the first films, set builders spent nine months recreating the village on farmland near the small town of Matamata, and returned to spend 2 1/2 years expanding it for Jackson's new trilogy, based on The Hobbit.

Forty-four hobbit-holes were built in different scales, to make the human actors playing wizards, dwarves and hobbits look different sizes.

The hobbit-holes have carved woodwork bearing the emblems of different hobbit families, real vegetable patches, dinky pewter jugs, crocheted curtains and hanging baskets brimming with primroses.

Now, the set  - maintained by local farmers  - is open to the public.

Hobbiton feels utterly real. Only the sharpest-eyed visitor will notice that the oak tree spreading over Bag End, the home of Bilbo Baggins and later his nephew Frodo, is made of fibreglass. After a high wind, its immaculately detailed plastic foliage must be collected up and stapled back on.

"We've asked the effects company to make us an all-weather version with retractable leaves," jokes Henry, the guide, who was a dairy farmer until his backyard was transformed into Middle-earth.

Tolkien's hobbits are home-loving creatures of habit, with a comfortable daily routine: breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper.

But they are never allowed to tarry long in Hobbiton before an adventure comes their way.

For those wishing to follow in their footsteps, there are many opportunities to embark on an unexpected journey through Middle-earth.

A gathering of the clouds

The morning was cool, and mists were in the valleys and hollows and twined here and there about the peaks and pinnacles of the hills.

Bilbo opened an eye to peep and saw that the birds were already high up and the world was far away, and the mountains were falling back behind them into the distance. 

The fastest way to get around Middle-earth is to be scooped up in the talons of the Lord of the Eagles, a gigantic bird indebted to the wizard Gandalf.

In the real world, the closest experience is to go up in Toby Reid's helicopter. Toby and his father, Bill, acted as scouts and pilots on both film productions, and now offer aerial tours of the Nelson region's The Lord of the Rings locations.

"We're just coming into Rivendell now," Toby shouts through the intercom as the little helicopter flies through a tree-lined pass between the mountains that precisely resembles the Elven city in the films.

This is the Kahurangi National Park, 400,000ha of snowcapped peaks, rainforest creeks and sandy beaches on the remote northwest edge of the South Island.

Bill found the striking location for South of Rivendell here for the first film, The Fellowship of the Ring.

"Dad found this place a couple of weeks after the scouts had finalised the film locations," Toby says. 

The helicopter comes to rest on Mt Olympus, its slopes covered with sparkling white limestone gravel, thorny bushes and some of the weirdest rock formations imaginable.

The huge outcrops of rock strewn down the mountainside are worn perfectly smooth, taking on rounded shapes. There are natural menhirs and spheres, but the strangest of all is a cluster of rocks in the shape of a giant grasping hand, palm up. One rock juts out like a thumb, appearing to move towards three raised fingers. It looks far too perfect to be real  - but it is.

Wandering among table-like rocks  - one of which provided a hiding place for ranger Aragorn and the hobbit Frodo in the film -  I spot the remains of a long-extinguished fire that featured in the same scene. It's a tangible reminder of the legacy Middle-earth has left on New Zealand.

But sometimes it works the other way  - with reality intruding on fiction.

"On the DVD of the film, there's a bit of a blooper," Toby says.

"Dad accidentally flew the helicopter into the back of the shot when they were filming up here."

The helicopter lifts off and speeds over fields of snowdrifts, punctuated by glassy pools of black water.

Toby steers it into a steep, eerie crevasse called Ghost Valley, and up to the roof of the world: the peak of stark, rugged Mt Owen. Gently, he lands on the soft snow, the helicopter's tracks sinking into the powder.

"Welcome to Dimrill Dale," he says, using the name given to this place in The Fellowship of the Ring.

It is a long way from anything resembling civilisation and perfectly silent  - though hare tracks in the snow indicate that at least one other being has been up here today.

The crew spent 10 days filming on Mt Owen, and did not travel light. Four helicopters transported cameras, sound and lighting equipment, technicians, wizards, elves and dwarves."The actors playing hobbits wanted to go upside down in the helicopters, and loop the loop," Toby says. Did he let them? "No," he replies sternly. "Helicopters can't really do that." For some tricks, only a giant eagle will do.

The Riders of Rohan

"Good-bye then, and really good-bye!" said Gandalf, and he turned his horse and rode down into the West. They heard his voice come faintly: "Good-bye! Be good, take care of yourselves  - and DON'T LEAVE THE PATH!" 

At dawn, the mist hangs low in the valleys of the Kahurangi National Park. Fat drops of dew dangle from the fronds of tree ferns and glitter in the morning light like strewn jewels.

In The Fellowship of the Ring, the hobbits are chased through Middle-earth's forests by orcs, the monstrous slaves of the Dark Lord Sauron.

This morning, though, everything seems peaceful  - until a snapping branch shatters the quiet.

Fortunately, the culprit turns out to be one of New Zealand's less terrifying real-life inhabitants: a sheep.

One of the best ways to experience this beautiful northwest corner of the South Island is on the back of a horse.

The horse-lords of Rohan are Middle-earth's most accomplished cavalry and several of the films' actors learnt bareback riding for their parts, including Orlando Bloom.

Today, thankfully, my steed is saddled for a gentle trot along this wild and windswept coastline.

We emerge into a field of long grass, reaching up to the beasts' bellies.

The horses follow the lead rider through the billowing reeds towards the lonely stretch of Wharariki beach.

Wind races across the sand, whipping it into white arabesques that surge over the ground like smoke, and creating rippled fern patterns on the surfaces of rock pools.

Ahead, colossal rocks loom out of the ocean, eroded by the sandstorms into natural arches large enough to sail a ship through.

A baby fur seal flops off its rock into the sea as our horses canter towards a series of caverns. They are willing to walk into even the darkest passages, emerging minutes later into the light.

Though Wharariki beach feels like the edge of the world, there are still more dramatic landscapes to explore.

The lofty peaks of the Southern Alps promise further adventures.

Minas Tirith

The lands opened wide about him, filled with the waters of the river. And far away, its dark head in a torn cloud, there loomed the Mountain! All alone it rose and looked across the marshes to the forest. The Lonely Mountain! 

The approach to Aoraki Mt Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain and part of the Southern Alps range, is one of the most spectacular drives in New Zealand  - and that is saying a lot.

Like Tolkien's Lonely Mountain, it looks across a marshy plain, which lies about 750m above sea level. Aoraki rises a further 3000m above that.

From the road, it can be seen entirely, from its shrubby base to its distinctive double peak, covered all year round with gleaming white snow.

The waters of nearby lakes Pukaki and Tekapo are a vivid turquoise. Tiny particles of rock ground by the glaciers that feed them turn the water milky and give the lakes this alien colour.

On a clear, blue day, gusts of wind buffet down from the peaks, picking up the fresh chill of the snow.

In the silence, the occasional growling, crumbling sound of an avalanche may be heard. It sounds like the bellow of a Balrog, a demon from beneath Middle-earth's mountains.

Along the sweep of the Southern Alps, beyond Aoraki, is Twizel.

Normally a small town of about 1000 people, its population doubled or trebled during the filming of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, as cast and crew poured in.

Almost everyone in Twizel had a job on the films, whether as a driver, a porter or an extra.

Twizel's golden meadows, leading up to violet-grey mountains, were the location for the most memorable sequence in the third film, The Return of the King: the battle of Pelennor Fields and the assault on the city of Minas Tirith.

The city itself was created in a studio and placed here by the magic of visual effects, but even without it the battlefield is unmistakable.

Now visitors can dress up as the Witch-king of Angmar or the wizard Gandalf, and run around in the sea of grass waving replica swords.

No gimmicks are required to appreciate the beauty of the scenery, but the hobbits' quest, and mine, must come to its conclusion in a very different place -  a place where the mountains shake and the Earth is alive to its core.

The Land of Shadow

There were many paths that led up into those mountains, and many passes over them. But most of the paths were cheats and deceptions and led nowhere or to bad ends; and most of the passes were infested by evil things and dreadful dangers. 

Most of New Zealand's spectacular mountain scenery is on the South Island, but it was Tongariro National Park on the North Island that was chosen to be Mordor, lair of the Dark Lord Sauron.

On the road up from sea level, signs of volcanic activity are everywhere. Thermal vents among the trees on the hillsides let off jets of hot steam.

Then, beyond a lake populated by flocks of black swans, is the first sight of the Tongariro mountain range.

The beginning of the Tongariro Crossing, one of New Zealand's most remarkable hikes, lies across a high, flat plain. It looks like something from another planet, dotted with flax bushes that grow flowering spikes. Green groves are hidden among the rocky outcrops.

It takes seven or eight hours and strong legs to hike the whole crossing, past ice-blue crater lakes, over snow-covered ridges and through windswept mountain deserts, where totara trees cling to the soft black volcanic sand.

The trees grow small and stunted, their living branches bleached bone-white by wind and dust. 

Ahead, rising into the stormy clouds, is Mt Ngauruhoe, the massive volcano that was Mount Doom.

It was at its peak that hobbit hero Frodo Baggins, played by Elijah Wood, finally succeeded in his quest to save Middle-earth by destroying the "one ring to rule them all".

The ring was made for Peter Jackson by Jens Hansen, a jeweller in the South Island town of Nelson.

His son Halfdan Hansen carries on the family tradition, making popular editions of the heavy design in silver and gold plate, as well as the 18-carat yellow gold one used in the films.

For the true fanatic, a quality souvenir and a couple of weeks exploring New Zealand's cinematic landscapes just don't cut it as a Middle-earth adventure.

"Some fans take it very seriously," Halfdan says. "An 18-year-old girl came here and bought our solid gold ring, costing nearly $3100. Then she went up in a helicopter over Mount Doom, and threw that ring right into the volcano."

---

Hobbit tours

The Hobbiton movie set is on the banks of the Waikato River on the North Island. Guides lead tours through the 4ha site, telling stories about the making of Hobbiton and the films.

See hobbitontours.com 

Hobbiton's pub, the Green Dragon, was rebuilt for The Hobbit movie trilogy  - and has a licence. Fans can enjoy a swig at the pub after the Hobbiton tour.

See goodgeorge.co.nz 

Wellington Rover Tours runs small group tours, both full day and half, of film locations.

See wellingtonrover.co.nz

Scenes for the woods of Lothlorien, Isengard and Fangorn were filmed at Paradise at Glenorchy, near Queenstown, on the South Island. Trilogy Trails offers air and land movie tours.

See trilogytrail.com 

One of the original rings from The Lord of the Rings films is on display at Jens Hansen jewellers in Nelson. Copies are for sale.

See jenshansen.com

--

"Like" Escape.com.au  on Facebook

Follow  @Escape_team on Twitter