Back from hiatus

It's been a busy few months. I haven't managed to get a lot of blogging done lately, only a few facebook and twitter updates. We've had a few birthdays here at home, and we've had other family staying with us, which always take precedence.

At work, our busy cruiseship touring season has begun again. By the time I come home from a full day tour, I'm usually pretty bushed, and my online activities are generally restricted to be read-only.

In all honesty though, there hasn't been that much to report. The Hobbit production is in full swing but none of it seems to be here in Wellington at the moment - Peter Jackson's various film teams have left Wellywood, and have headed further north and further south. I've seen the occasional celebrity in town but generally they were already reported by other sources.


I don't mean to imply that I've been sitting still - far from it! I've been working on a myriad of LOTR related projects, some for my own pleasure, some for work, and some for the online community. I'll try to get some of the projects online, as soon as I can (or in some cases, as soon as the cloak of secrecy comes off them).

I've also formed a very exciting alliance with fairly new forum - Middle-earth Network. I joined them a few months ago, and it looks like I'm in great company - people like the wellknown artists Ted Nasmith and Jef Murray, and the Tolkien Professor Corey Olsen. Frankly I feel like a hobbit at an Elven dinner party! Still, any excuse for a banquet...

The Middle-earth News/NZ Noldor alliance means I'll have some better resources behind me to get on with some very exciting LOTR related projects - some of which are already underway. I hope to have some announcements about some of them soon - patience!

What I will also report a bit more often, is reports from the field that are not necessarily Hobbit related, but more general stuff. Earlier this year another tree blew over in Isengard (Upper Hutt's Harcourt Park), unfortunately it was a "reference" tree (ie, it appeared in FOTR).

It's been replaced by two new young ones. If there's call for more reports like that, let me know - I'll pop some photos on a bit more often.

Also, is it time for another Welly-moot? I'm keen! Anyone else? Drop me a comment, here or on Facebook!

  - Jack

A cold day in Rivendell

The last few days, the weather has been brutally cold (for Wellington, at least), but today was a recordbreaker during my time as a tourguide.

On tour today, the weather started to close in as we drove north. It was hailing and sleeting at the River Anduin, but after Isengard it really began to look grim. We continued further north, and drove over the hills into the Pakuratahi Valley, where the Kaitoke Park is situated (and Rivendell within the forest).

As we drove over the hillrange, a totally new sight greeted us, and the "grim" turned to "fairy tale".

July 2011

In my seven and a half years as a fulltime LOTR tourguide, I haven't seen Rivendell like this. Once, in 2004, there was a slight sprinkling of snow on the ground but this was full on. Compare this picture from then (and note the old style sign was still there, as you'll see in Ian Brodie's LOTR Location Guidebook):

August, 2004

If you've been to Rivendell before, you may remember this tree as well:

Tree opposite Frodo's Bedroom

Today it looked like this:

The park was full of Wellington children who couldn't believe their luck; snow - closeby, AND during their school holidays. In fact, all along the road back there were cars stopped beside the road with snowball fights breaking out, and snowmen being built. Hopefully for them the snow stays for a few days, but now that I have my photos I'm happy for the sun to return! :)

One more photo:

The Rivendell information sign

I drove through the area late yesterday, and there was no snow there at all, so this all happened in the last 24 hours. Awesome!

  - Jack

Stone Street Studio Stage "H" update

Referring back to my earlier post on this - I've heard a few more details through the grapevine - apparently the new indoor soundstage is costing around the $10,000,000 mark, and is currently about two weeks behind schedule, what with the bad weather we had earlier this month.

The front of the large concrete building has gone up, and some of the side wall panels have appeared as well.

I've put some more photos on the original post, and I'll post more as the building comes up. Exciting stuff!

  - Jack M.

Update on Lothlorien Bridge - work is completed.

It know it looks like I've been a lazy little blogger these last few weeks, but in fact quite the reverse is true - I've been a bit busy with tours lately (or more accurately, I've been run off my feet with tours lately), and haven't had a chance to do much of anything else at all.

Apart from the already crazy busy week, I got called in for tours from the first of the (expected 52!) cruise ships which came into Wellington last Saturday, so I didn't have much of a weekend either! All good fun though, and I met up with some great folks off the big boat. The weather wasn't great but we managed to avoid the worst of it by strategically rearranging the order of the location stops around the region, and the hot chocolates at the morning tea location certainly helped keep the spirits up!


I do have a quick update to report on the storm-damaged Lothlorien bridge though - it has been completely rebuilt, and all work has been finished.

Unfortunately it doesn't look like the damage was covered by insurance since the bridge was not a "vital structure" (I know a few LOTR fans who would happily argue that point!), but the good folks at Fernside have just jumped ahead and rebuilt it regardless - and a big thanks to them all from myself, and everyone reading this, I'm sure!

  - Jack M.

Work has started on the bridge at Lothlorien (updated)

I visited the Lothlorien location last week and was delighted to see the reconstruction work has begun on the bridge. One contractor estimated that the bridge should be completely finished before the end of September, in fact!

No photos, I'm afraid - I didn't have a camera with me, and it's close to an hour drive. Hopefully later this week (my next visit will be on Tuesday).


Update: It's Tuesday night, I've just come back from (amongst other places) Lothlorien, and although I forgot my main camera again, I did take a lo-res one on my mobile phone. It'll do until I get a better one...

As you can see, the engineer is still hard at work - the struts have been restored, the main beams have been put back on, and the floor is halfway through being restored as well. After this, the bannisters, and a new paint job, and it should be back in no time.


  - Jack

Lothlorien update

It's been a pretty quiet sort of a week - not a lot to report. I suspect all the big guns are still recovering from San Diego's ComicCon, and perhaps dealing with the premiere of District 9, which was screened last night at the Park Road Post Production facilities in Miramar, and tonight at the Embassy Theatre (the same place that had the ROTK premiere on Dec 1, 2003) before going on general release.

One thing I did hear though, was that the destroyed bridge at Lothlorien will undergo its repairs starting from next week. It looks like we're going to have an identical bridge again!



As you can see, the support struts are still standing (although a bit crooked), and the offending tree has been completely removed. We have started returning to Fernside (which also doubled as the Gladden Fields) again a little while ago ago, so if you were holding off visiting until it opened again - wait no more, our operators are standing by to take your call! :)


I'll go in next week with a camera when the repairs start, so you can all see the progress as it happens.

- Jack M.

Lothlorien open again, but...

The Lord Of The Rings filming location of Lothlorien, located just outside Featherston in the Wairarapa region, has reopened again after the storm damage has been assessed (see my earlier post on Sunday May the 17th).

The bridge, after the movie but before the storm

Apparently the tree that has crushed the bridge has been removed, and the bridge remains crushed but they're working hard on repairing the damage. Things aren't quite back to normal but at least the safety of our guests can be maintained again.

Not a lot else to say since I haven't seen it myself yet, but I'm due to visit with a group this coming Sunday the 14th of June - I hope to get a better idea of the situation, and possibly some photos then.

NB - although the location has been reopened, the privately owned location is not open to the general public. The best way to see it is to take Flat Earth's full day Extended LOTR tour, which visits it.

- Jack M.

Lothlorien Bridge destroyed

The big news after the storm last week was that the newly-restored bridge at Fernside was pretty much completely destroyed by a falling tree.



One of several trees in fact - in total, five separate trees on the property came down in the storm. From the photo it looks more like it's been precariously placed on the bridge rather than crashing down on it.

Most of last year, the property was off-limits to visitors as the new owners drained the lake and refurbished the bridge, which had just been completed. I took this photo of it at the time:




In the movies, the bridge looked more elvish of course - check this one instead.


The bridge was pretty unique in Middle-earth terms - it was allegedly the only man-made object to appear in LOTR, that existed before the movie was made. Everything else (around 45,000 props or so) was custom-made by the Weta Workshop, or carefully digitised by Weta Digital.


For the foreseeable future, my tours won't be visiting the location due to the obvious safety concerns. Watch this space for updates.