I’ve got the permission of the Moderator to post this announcement, for any Tolkien fans who might be interested. I thought I’d get more fine-tuned response in Cafe Society, rather than the other forums, so I ask the Moderators please not to move this, although it’s somewhat unconventional for Cafe Society.
Briefly: this will be a
Cost is roughly $3,500 per person, double occupancy, excluding airfare, some meals, and extras. The dates are December 31 to January 13 (plus a day or so on the edge for air travel from the States.)
The sponsor is Pacific Pathways. If you’re interested in more information, email me at CKDextHavn@aol.com – be sure to put something identifying in the subject line, like “NZ” – and I’ll give you the further details. (I get no commission of any sort out of this, I just want to be sure there’s enough of a group going so that it actually does go!)
I hope they extend the return by a week or so for everybody to start job hunting and visa extending because folks will only want to come home to pack for a permanent move. The place looks like what Heaven WANTS to look like.
Well, yeah, it does have cost. That’s why I mentioned it up front. I wish it were more affordable, believe me, but then the guides want to be paid, as do the people who own the rafts (yes, rafting down the Anduin) and helicopters and sheep.
I went on this tour when I was in New Zealand last November. I should just mention that all the sets and stuff were destroyed after production wrapped. Example: you see where Bilbo’s house was and the hole in the stone where the doors and windows were, but the door is missing and all the landscaping is gone. Here’s a picture.
I still had a great time and I definitely think it’s worth it, but I was a little disappointed that it didn’t still look exactly like it did in the movie.
Great, more bloody riff-raff. If it looks like you can get a group together, drop me an e-mail {the address is in my profile} and maybe we can hook up for a beer when you’re passing through Auckland.
I don’t know where this tour will be operating, but it may be worth adding that several friends of mine have been quite disappointed with LOTR tours that they did while in New Zealand. The tours operated out of Wellington. I’m not sure whether the tours were bad or whether my friends’ expectations were unreasonably high.
I haven’t read the books or seen the films so I can’t comment at all from a personal point of view.
This tour never seems to spend more than one night at the same place (OK, two nights in Wellington, two nights in Queenstown, but otherwise, on the go.) An old college friend of mine is the Tolkien Geek-- ah, expert who’s tagging along for discussions. He spent one summer back in the 60s working with Tolkien on the Silmarillion as a summer intern (IIRC), and he’s as Tolkien a nut as ever I’ve found (apologies to the various folks here), so I suspect this will be an excellent tour.
Yes, Case, I’ll try to compile a list of NZ-dopers and see about get-togethers. Or, I’ll find one in each major city and let them organize something. My wife and I plan to spend a couple extra days front and rear end of the tour.
I was on a cruise once, a few years back, with a mostly-Australian group of fellow passengers. Somehow or other, the subject or racial (or perhaps racist) jokes came up. I wondered aloud what sort of jokes they told about us Kiwis.
The Aussies looked somewhat uncomfortable, but I persisted until one of them rather reluctantly said, “Well … sheep.”
Oh, yeah. That genuinely hadn’t even occurred to me.
The tour has been revised slightly, so there’s a somewhat lower price – just under $3000 per person, for double occupancy, and again excluding airfare, some meals, etc.
Dates are now March 7 - 20, 2006.
Anyone interested, please contact me by email at CKDextHavn@aol.com for more info… and please, be sure the subject line of your email is something about NZ or Middle-earth tour.
A tour of New Zealand is not a tour of Middle-earth. It’s just a tour of New Zealand. New Zealand may be a wonderful place in its own right, but it’s not Middle-earth. At most, it’s Peter Jackson’s image of New Zealand. And are you surprised that a New Zealander might decide that his image of Middle-earth looks like parts of New Zealand?
Worse, a good-sized chunk of “Middle Earth” is actually a rather unattractive stone quarry on the outskirts of Wellington, so I hear.
The only place I visited that very obviously hit you over the head with LotRness was the environs of Queenstown, with the Remarkables having played the role of the Misty Mountains over Eregion. The whole freaking country looks like a scene from a mythic fantasy, so unless you’ve got a good guide, you’ll be hard-pressed to quickly identify landscapes that appeared in the films, but are now lacking the props and CGI embellishments the films used heavily. While there we perused a map of where most of the major filming took place, and I’d say a specific LotR tour is really a waste of your precious eNZed time, as the locales are sometimes just out-of-the-way bush on the North Island that was picked for its very anonymity. There are really better ways to plan a trip to see the best of what New Zealand has to offer.
If Hobbiton isn’t completely gone by now, it’s a stripped-down shadow of its cinematic self. I saw a before-and-after picture, and there ain’t a whole lot left but rather unphotogenic mounds with holes in them. Edoras is completely gone. The quarry has been stripped of Minas Tirith and the Hornberg. Rivendell and Lothlorien never really existed. Caradhras was CGI, so when you see the Southern Alps, you’ll have no idea which part was supposed to be leading up to the Redhorn Pass. Lots of places could look like the Dimrill Dale. Besides some non-descript fields of volcanic ash, Mordor is almost completely CGI. Mt. Ngauruho is defininitely a beautiful sight (any trip to Tongariro Natl. Park is quite worth it, Mt. Doom or no), but you won’t be thinking Orodruin when you see it. Taranaki is a gorgeous volcanic cone as well, so I’d tell you to swing by there if you have the chance. At least fly over it (I did from Aukland to Wellington…fantastic!).
If it looks like you can get a group together, drop me an e-mail {the address is in my profile} and maybe we can hook up for a beer when you’re passing through Auckland.