A short a simple bus journey from central Wellington gets you to Weta caves. This is not an actual cave but more a shrine to the film industries creativity and in particular Peter Jackson.

Unfortunately the Weta cave workshop tour was fully booked so I wasn't allowed to go backstage. But if you get the chance and your a bit of a film geek like me its definitely worth seeing the ins and outs of how props, buildings and characters out of films like Lord Of The Rings were created and brought to life.

Even without the tour you can visit the free shop. Welcoming you into the shop is the 3 cave trolls from the hobbit which id guess are fairly life size. Then when you finally go in the shop, after hours of creating your own photos with cave trolls attacking you etc you find yourself in collectors heaven. Limited replicas to buy, actual props used and great models of people like golem to selfie with.

Inside the shop there's a little room that shows a 30 min program about how it all started which is pretty cool.

In all, for a small $$$ bus fare, its def worth a look!