So, PhotoBucket wants 400 bucks/year or else it holds your photos hostage.

Boo! Photobucket, thou foul of Sauron.

The view from our hotel room in Queenstown.

No oliphaunts here today.

You may need to enlarge this one - the mountain in the middle is where they filmed the Caradhras scenes.

This is a location from The Hobbit - there was a house built here. Our best guesses were Radagast's house or Beorn's. Guess we'll have to wait and see the movie!

Apparently it's not allowed to leave New Zealand without playing dress-up. Here we are in Lothlorien with Sting and a wool cloak - which we needed because it was COLD.

On the way to Mt. Sunday, AKA Edoras.

Also on the way. These mountains are the New Zealand Alps, on the South Island.

Our first view of Edoras - it's that little hill in the middle there.

And a close-up view. It's a lot taller in person. No, I did not make it all the way to the top.

The plains of Edoras from the slopes of Mt. Sunday,

A view from about half-way up. This is as far as I got.

Another view, from the other side of the mountain to the previous one. Mt. Sunday is out in the middle of nowhere, almost literally (the area is know as Erewhon). We left at 9 am and got back to Christchurch about 5:30 pm, with stops for morning tea and for lunch.

Our tour guide was Hammond Pete, a double Oscar winner for sound on Return of the King and King Kong. Yes, he does tours to supplement his income. Sound production is not the key to riches, even after winning two Oscars.

Get off the Road!

A shortcut to Mushrooms? Wait, those aren't Hobbits - those are three Germans and a Frenchman. The Frenchman is on the bottom - that is so typical!

Frodo meets an old friend at the Weta Cave.

This concludes our broadcast day - please enjoy this lovely lily while I share the super-tip-top-secret portion of this post.

For $20, you could actually take a tour of Weta Workshop - not the store, the actual Workshop. Only myself and one other person on my tour of about 35 people opted to do this, and the rest are completely crazy stupid, because it was completely wonderful. No pics allowed, though, so you'll just have to imagine it.

OK, you don't see the entire place, only a small portion of it, but they have lots of items on display and even though there are 'Do Not Touch' signs everywhere, Jade, our tour guide, said, 'you can touch that' at just about every step on the tour, so I've touched Sauron's armor and the miniature of the castle in 'Prince Caspian' as well as bits of armor and other things. You can peer into the shop where they artists are actually working (if you're there before 5 pm) and we got to meet one of the artists, Craig, who was working on a sculpture and let us 'help'. Tid had to come back and shoo us out, it was so fascinating. Highly recommended if you ever have the chance.

The Embassy Theatre, where the premiere was. Sigh.

The quarry where the Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith sets were built. Surprisingly, it's right on the highway where anyone driving by could see what was happening.

Imagine Gandalf riding up to Isengard.

And then conferring with Saruman in the garden. That's our tour guide, Tid. I think it's really Ted, but he said it was Tid. Kiwis!

Really?

Really!

Look, I'm famous!

OK, I know it doesn't look like much. The plot is actually rather small, and the removed all the plants for filming, kept them in a greenhouse then replaced them all when filming was done. So the Rivendell site just looks like a bit of 'bush' now. It's still pretty darn cool.

Blogger's not letting me add any more pics, so I'll do another post of this tour tomorrow.

Sorry for the long lag between posts - I was hit with a double whammy of a bad fall which injured my back and a bad case of food poisoning. I ended up at Urgent Care Sunday night, and spent the next three days throwing up and taking pain killers. I ventured out today to the last day of the Hobbit Artisan Market, but I didn't take my camera along. I missed my premiere party and I'm currently missing the Red Carpet walk at the actual Premiere, but I am feeling much better now - just don't have enough energy for fighting the crowds or standing for hours on the street.

I do have a movie location tour booked for tomorrow, so I'll try to have pictures posted for you from that in a day or two.

Frodo and I did make it to the attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the most sandcastles built in an hour, held Sunday morning at beautiful Lyall Bay.

Frodo was allowed to sit on the big castle built by Weta - he had a good time and is being a very good sport about having to sit in the hotel room for days on end. I promise him he'll get out tomorrow and have a better time than we've been having.

The trip to Urgent Care was surprisingly inexpensive, although the drugs were a bit overpriced - but very competent. I was in and out in a bit over an hour, which I don't think would have been the norm in the States. Another guest at the hotel, Maria, was kind enough to accompany me - there are angels everywhere!

One last look at Mt. Doom!