The Hobbit & Lord of The Rings

The Lord of the Rings was filmed all over New Zealand, though more in the South Island than the North. Peter Jackson researched remote and little visited corners of the country to provide the hugely varied and spectacular scenery of the films. Regions such as Tongariro National Park in the central North Island, Nelson Lakes and the Mt Arthur area near Motueka/Riwaka, Queenstown, Arrowtown, Glenorchy and the Matukituki Valley near Mt Aspiring in the Southern Lakes, Fiordland, parts of central Otago were all important locations for the movies. Fiordland, especially, has featured in The Hobbit.

Any tour by followers of the movies is not complete without a visit to Wellington and Weta Workshops. The ongoing contribution of the Lord of the Rings movies and Peter Jackson and Richard Taylor to the industry in terms of editing studios, set and model making is visible in the large areas of Seatoun given over to movie design; from Avatar to Tintin, The Planet of the Apes, Wolverine, the Hobbit movies and Batman. See Weta Workshops.