It's amazing what a good nights' sleep will do for you. Slept right through like a baby, only got woken up around 7ish by my upstairs neighbour stomping about like a cave troll - which was quite apt, and actually timely, as I was getting up for my Lord of the Rings location tour.

Thankfully, my pick up wasn't until 8.30am, and I had spied a very nice café across the road from the hotel (still in raptures about being in a proper hotel, even it was a bit shabby and in need of a refurb), right next to the tourist info and next to the tour pick up. Got a proper cup of tea, properly stewed and suitably strong and discussed with the guy behind the counter the do's and don'ts of making proper British tea (he had a British grandfather, and a Yorkshire man to boot!).

Opted for the all day tour, which was a bit pricey, but didn't want to be running around like a mad thing! There were only 3 others on the tour, all proper geeks - one was even in town for the ComiCon sci fi event on at the weekend and had come early especially to do the LOTR tour! I was probably the sanest there, and that included the guide! (Couldn't work out if he was a frustrated writer, director or photographer or just plain mad?!?).

Anyway, I won't go into too much detail, as I'm aware not everyone likes LOTR as much as I do, and I wasn't half as bad as the rest of the tour group, but it was a good tour, as not only did we see a number of the shooting locations, we got a great tour around Wellington and it's suburbs. We went past the big stages where they are/have been filming The Hobbit and managed to see some of the set for LakeTown, with it's green screen behind it - although it's so large, it would be difficult to hide it. We could also see, off in the distance, the set for Dale, although we didn't go anywhere near it.

Key locations - the "get off the road" and chase to Buckleberry ferry location on Mount Victoria, Helms Deep/Minas Tirith (in a quarry), boating down the Anduin, Rivendell and Isengard. Rivendell was probably the hardest to visualize, as with all the others the location was the set, whereas in Rivendell, they just plunked a huge set down in some woods and once the set has gone, it's really hard to see what's what, even with a guide and a map. Our guide was very good and very knowledgeable, although if you have the extended dvd's (yes, I do, thank you very much) you actually know a fair bit of what he said already at each location. He also kept up this banter all throughout the day of us not actually being in NZ, but passing through Middle Earth and talking about this book he was going off to write about "Muddle Earth" and all sorts of obscure links between current times and LOTR in NZ. It was quite entertaining to start, but wore a little thin by then end of the day.

We also stopped off at the "Weta Cave", basically a substitute for a tour of the Weta Workshops. Unfortunately, due to confidentiality issues, you can't tour the film sets or the studios or the workshops, so they have set up this little shop thing where you get a brief film about the history of Weta (basically the guys behind all the special FX, costumes, design etc) and then you get a chance to buy some memorabilia - at fairly hefty prices I might add. I was slightly tempted, until I saw the price tags!! We also stopped off round the corner from the Weta Cave at The Roxy Cinema, which the couple behind Weta have spent 7mnNZ$ restoring to it's former Art Deco glory and re opened as a cinema. Let me tell you, it was money well spent. Having just been in Napier, I thought I'd probably see more of the same, but my, it's amazing what being a multi billionaire can do. We also drove past Peter Jackson's house, well the one he lives in (he owns quite a lot of property in Wellington apparently, including a bunch he is restoring) and got some facts about his enterprise. Apparently, their weekly electrical bill is something in the region of NZ$32,000 - due to them having more computer power than NASA. No wonder the next 2 Avatar's are being done in NZ - apparently James Cameron is moving to Wellington.

And I can see why, as I actually liked Wellington a lot. All the suburbs are spread out all over the hills and peninsulas around the bay, meaning the roads are all a nightmare of parking and twisty lanes, but majority of houses are timbered and everyone seems to have a view of something nice and it just had a homely feel that I liked. We had lunch in a little café around the headland from the studios, where all the stars went when filming in Wellington, which was really nice and had afternoon tea at Rivendell, also nice, as we had spent the day dodging the rain in a day of sunshine and showers. Most of the day, we got lucky and were in a pocket of sunshine, except for our very start at Mount Victoria and Rivendell. I'd like to say I'm not complaining, but actually I did, as there was a quite a chilly breeze for most of the day and I wasn't expecting NZ to be so cold yet - yes I know it's autumn here, but I was expecting it to still be a bit warmer. Might have to go buy a coat of some sort!

Got back to the hotel after 5ish and tried to sort out the first few days of my South Island accommodation, as I realised I hadn't done it yet. Up to now, I've been able to get the hotel receptionists to do it for me, as it's part of the service on the plan I'm on, but no dice with this receptionist, although up til then she had been extremely helpful. Luckily the two places I wanted to stay have toll free numbers, so I called up and booked, with no issues, thankfully, so sorted for the next few days. Went for a reasonably early night, as catching the 8.15am ferry to Picton, with the last check in at 7.30am and needed to fill up & drop off the hire car, find the ferry terminal etc and really didn't want to be late, as missing it would mean a long dark drive the other side!!