Lord Of The Rings and Weta cave tour

At the end of last month my wife and I went to Wellington. During four days we saw majority of tourist attractions located within the walking distance from our hotel.

We also went to short Lord Of The Rings tour. This is organized by Flat Earth in Wellington. We went to “The Weta Cave and Rings Tour”.

Weather was not at it best but it held up to Wellington’s reputation – lots of wind. Apart from us, there were three lads from UK (now working in NZ). The tour started with visit to Mt Victoria. Our guide started the tour with lot of information and anecdotes about the making of the movies.

 
From top of the mountain we went on short ride to the location of the first scene filmed for the Fellowship of the ring.

As you can see on the screenshot our guide is holding the tree has not changed much since then.


Unfortunately, it is not visible on the picture above but houses are just 40 or 50 meters downhill from where we were standing. It is amazing how close it is and you would not know it is filmed in the middle of Wellington.

Not too far is a location of another famous scene. Can you guess which one from picture I took?

 

After this we went to Miramar where film studios and post production took place. Weta cave is also in Miramar. We made a quick stop at the wharf to look at the old ship. If it looks familiar then you’ve seen the King Kong (Peter Jackson’s version of course). The ship was bought for a $1 by a fan who now lives in the boat. If you have a close look at the third image you may see that there is a lot of painted wood used to mimic riveted steel.






In Miramar we also saw Park Road building – post production studio for Lord Of The Rings trilogy.



The last part of the trip was visit to Weta Cave. It is located in Camperdown Road in the corner of the building and it is packed with items and merchandise from Lord of the rings and other movies Weta worked on.



Part of the Weta Cave is a mini museum. It has quite a few models of characters and items from the movies. These are not for sale. Here are few shots.




I really admire level of details on these models.





There are items for sale and as you may have expected various Precious Rings are available.

 

More interestingly there are various items designed by Weta staff that is not created for any movie or project but as something they found interesting. I have to say that reminds me a lot of combination of Jumanji and Bioshock. How? Have a look at next few pictures.



This is very much like Hunter from Jumanji with weapon from Bioshock.

 

Very strange creatures…



One of the imaginary weapons – Infalliable Aether Oscillator. This model in particular is Manmelter 3600 ZX. Looks like it is using plasma for ammo.


This one could be yours for NZ$1,399 only. These are unique items crafted by Weta designers.

And for the end something that my brother-in-law is teasing me about. He is saying there is a striking resemblance… I know it is not true – I have way more hair (for now).