Today, we joined a movie tour. It feels a little geeky, but what the hell. You can't come to New Zealand and avoid LOTR. The tour was actually very good. We were shown around a couple of areas around Wellington that were used as backgrounds in the film. It includes the forest park that was used as the setting for Rivendell, home of the elves. It was such a popular area after filming, that the parks board renamed the area Rivendell. This afternoon, we m...

Today, we're in Tongariro National Park, in the centre of the North Island. The park is home to three of New Zealand's Volcanoes: Ruapehu, Tongariro, and Ngauruhoe. Mount Ngauruhoe was used as Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. We spent the morning wandering around the slopes near the Whakapapa Village. It was here that more scenes from LOTR were shot. The volcanic landscape was ideal for Mordor. Some of the more famous scenes, were the one w...