The Lord of the Rings Tour in Twizel – Day 191

Today we are dressing up like our favourite Lord of the Rings characters and we are charging into battle.

This morning we are meeting Dawn from One Ring Tours and a couple of Tolkein nerds.

My name’s Brady I’m from Australia.

We won’t hold that against you Brady.

I’m Katy and I’m from Australia with Brady we live together so. Probably not a big a fan as Brady is but still pretty up there.

Twizel has a couple of unique aspects. It is the largest location of any movie filmed in New Zealand. And it is the longest consecutive filming from the Lord of the Rings. 32 days that they were here. Peter Jackson was only present in Twizel 3 days. Now, do you know why? Nobody had ever filmed 3 movies at the same time before so they had 7 units working simultaneously throughout New Zealand.

We’re gonna be seeing some of the biggest filming locations from the Lord of the Rings The Return of the King so Dawn is taking us to our first location where she’s got ah little booklet full of screenshots so we can really see the filming locations and actually see which parts of the movies they are from.

For instance, in this location this is the mountain backdrop where Gandalf and Pippin cross the river from Rohan to Gondor. And then it is onto our next location which we actually have to access private land to get to.

And as soon as we reach our second location Dawn has even more stories to tell us.

If you’ve been to the circus or a festival that’s the way I would describe it. Now here, it was massive. they had four massive tents or marques. For film, food armory and costume.

One of the awesome things about going on One Ring Tours and speaking with Dawn is that she’s not just a tour guide she was actually here she was actually one of the extras during the film shoot. She was here with her horse and she was one of the riders during the some of the massive epic scale battle scenes that The Return of the King features.

So between the first hand commentaries from Dawn and the stunning scenery we can’t help but be transported into Tolkien’s world or at least Peter Jackson’s version of it.

This tour is not only for Lord of the Rings nerds like we are. It’s a formidable way to get an insight into the world of movie making. It’s absolutely incredible to hear her stories and the scale of this enterprise.

So you come here you’re employed for 13 days you have both Rohan and Gondor parts. You’re paid 100 dollars a day for you and 100 dollars a day for your horse.

One of the really cool things about this filming location is that this gravel road is the only one left in the South Island from when the Lord of the Rings was filming in New Zealand. And in this location actually is where scenes from the Pelennor Fields battles were filmed. More specifically it when the riders of Rohirrim charge onto the field as well as that moment when Eowyn stabs the Witch King in the face.

Then Dawn escapes for an instance and comes back the first costumes of the day.

Yes! yeah! Woo! Yeah!

We are now getting the chance to dress up as Gondorian warriors and it’s our first nerd cam of the day.

Taking the brave poses of the warrior waiting to be slaughtered to their death, we are taking heaps of absolutely amazing pictures we are trying to take the most epic shots that we can.

Our Australian friends are going first and things get a little bit weird at some point.

That’s probably how you do things in Australia. I’m not really sure that’s not how we do things here in New Zealand but as soon as Laura and I get a chance to take some awesome pictures as well we feel the urge to fit in. So I’m taking heaps of epic shots give the helmet and the armor to Laura and here we are we are now behaving like our crazy ozzy friends.

This is probably the funniest shot I have ever done here in New Zealand and that’s one that we’re gonna have to keep for the bloopers at the end of the year.

I’ll be a gentleman and just say it’s thirsty work to be horse.

Moving on from our crazy antics, Dawn has even more locations to show us and she’s taking us to another epic battle location.

Dawn is now taking us to the very hill where the Riders of Rohirrim charge into battle at the Battle of Pelennor Fields and as you might have guessed we now get to re-enact that very scene this time with some Lord of the Rings weapons.

There’s something about holding a sword and a flag which makes you feel so so epic especially as we are in the very field where the scene shot.

There are so many awesome photo opportunities and actually Dawn is giving us some really fun ideas for our photos as well before we hop back into the van and make our way to our next and final filming location of the day.

Although the tour is 2 hours long it really feels that we’ve only been here for a few minutes. We are having an absolute blast on the road with Dawn visiting all those awesome locations and before we arrive to the last location of the day, Dawn is taking the time to give us her last pieces of insights.

And this is actually quite a tricky scene because it’s all about mathematics in a way they have to measure so they take the cameras and they put markers in the field.

And after such and insightful tour Dawn is handing us out more props to re-create some of the most iconic Lord of the Rings scenes and we are taking it to a whole new level this time, go ahead judge us.

They left me behind just because i’m filming is not a reason to make me exercise is it? Those goddamn tour guides.