Wellywood Map by Daniel Reeve, now available for purchase!

The LOTR touring company I work for, Wellington Rover Tours, has always given away a map to our guests at the end of the tours. This map was originally printed by the Wellington newspaper, the Dominion Post, back in 2001 when the first movie was released.

The old map, no longer available.

Although the map was a fine reminder of your visit to Wellington as it showed the whole Wellington area complete with quite a number of LOTR locations, I was never quite satisfied with it. Some of the locations were inaccessible, or too far away for our tour. Some of the text accompanying the map was incomplete, or downright wrong. Of course, back in 2001 the LOTR shoot hadn't completed yet so the newspaper did the best they could, given the limited information available.

When my boss informed me in December last year that we'd almost run out of the printed maps again, I took the opportunity to develop an idea I've had for a while - to create a custom-made map of "our" Wellington region, done in a more suitable style, and by the best Cartographer around - Daniel Reeve. Daniel Reeve of course created the maps for Peter Jackson's movies, for Lord Of The Rings as well as for King Kong and Narnia, and almost all of the written material for LOTR - he is a supurb Calligrapher and all-round artist, and often hosts artists sessions for Red Carpet Tours as well.

I was aware that Daniel would probably be working on The Hobbit movie soon, so my window of opportunity was limited. I got in contact with Daniel late last year and incredibly, he agreed to do the work. The result is fantastic - see what you think!

The maps were published a few weeks ago, and we've been quietly handing them out to our guests. Also, if you remember from my entry on the second Welly-moot last week, Wellington Rover Tours donated a map to all attendees (at a cost of over $250 - thanks to my boss Scott!)

The response has been 100% positive, and in fact we've had so many enquiries about them that we've decided to make them available online. So if you've been on a Rover Rings tour and would like an extra copy for a friend, or if you haven't been able to make it down to New Zealand yet but would like a map in the meantime, here is your chance!

We've decided to keep the costs down to give everyone a chance to get one, but we're only making 100 available in this first instance, to see how that goes. The maps are NZ$24.95 plus NZ$7.50 shipping and handling wordwide, and there's a link on the page to see how much that will be in your own currency.


As long as they are available, the map will have a permanent link from the top of my blog here, look for the "Wellywood Map" link at the top of this page.


I'm very keen on feedback - please drop me a line with your thoughts!

  - Jack M.