Farewell New Zealand

Final night in New Zealand

It's been a great trip and despite the weekend of rest prescribed we made it a very memorable one. Joel traded in his riding for reading and cooking and we just cozied up listening to the crashing surf most of the time. On the way up here we bought a ton of fresh produce and meats for the BBQ and have just been in food heaven.

The weather warmed up to about 20 degrees with a brisk breeze. Yesterday we took a long drive to see the country side and today - after 4 days of bed rest - I went for a waddle with Joel down the beach at sunset. Feeling pretty good on my feet but not at all like leaving this beautiful place tomorrow.

The Hobbit Premiere pt 2

There's a very good reason for staking ones claim on a sacred bit of fence hours before the red carpet opens. We were aware that there would be little chance of a good view of the happenings by the time we headed back down there but we had no idea just how many would show up. Estimates said about 100,000 fans were glued to fence and pouring into side streets, spilling into the nearby Hobbit festival. We could hear the actors speaking to the press and see them on the big screens but that was about it.

I had little stamina for standing so we hailed a cab and went to check out the Hobbit Festival on its last night. Rather than a heavily Hobbit branded event it was a showcase of local artisans making anything from leather messenger bags to woven scarves. There were a few food stalls and then the huge field with a big screen where we caught the final stage of the red carpet hoopla as the PM and Peter Jackson as well as some of the actors took to the shire themed stage.

We continued our walk back through the city in search of a place for dinner. I was beyond exhausted so by 8:00pm we called it a night. Closed our tab at the pub we'd found and headed back to our friend's place to put our feet up.

The onlookers along the red carpet were at least 10 deep by this point all
 along the 500 metres

The Hobbit Premiere pt 1

The red carpet has been unfurled, the die-hard fans are dressed in their middle earth best and are lining the streets for places. Actors start their walk in about an hour and a half. These are the iPhone pics from just a little earlier today.

TGIF

Joel finished up his last day working for this trip and now our "vacation" begins. Headed to the South Island for the weekend. Back in time to document the Hobbit Festival and premiere festivities next week.

A beautiful day in the Shire

Just a gorgeous day here in Middle Earth. Wellington is transforming from city to Shire as the Hobbit Festival starts to get set up.

Middle Earth Arrival

I arrived via a tiny little plane from Blenheim. It was a glorious afternoon and I had the most perfect view landing in Wellington. The first festive thing to catch my eye was the Middle of Middle Earth sign across the airport which I believe is covering the usual Wellington Airport sign. Upstairs was the giant Gollum that hangs from the ceiling you've probably seen on the news in the past few weeks. The baggage carousels were also dressed up in Hobbit style.

wellington_2012112100016, a photo by coach_stacey on Flickr.

This is the Embassy theatre all set for the big day. More pics to come over the next few days!

Journey to the Middle of Middle Earth

Joel travels to Wellington quite frequently and our recent travels plans actually had nothing to do with The Hobbit premiere as Joel's already working on films much further away on the horizon. However, when we realized that our time there would coincide with the premiere of The Hobbit we began to look at the plans for what Wellington has in store for this monumental time.

This first article I read on Huffington Post states

"[Wellington] is preparing for the world premiere of the opening film in "The Hobbit" trilogy by showcasing an artisan festival selling all manner of small-folk paraphernalia, laying a red carpet that will extend 500 yards through central Wellington"

also...

"Wellington plans to unofficially rename itself "The Middle of Middle-earth" for three weeks before and after the premiere. It says the name will be widely recognized, reflected on things like the postmarks on letters and the masthead of the city's main newspaper."

And there's more! I've heard rumors that NZ customs is getting into the spirit with passport stamps along this theme. I'm hoping to collect one of those on landing. Also as we're coming in on Air New Zealand we might be lucky enough to get this safety video before take-off:

So what exactly can we hope to see at the Premiere? Information is not that easy to come by but this article says that they "will install big screens in Waitangi Park with a live feed from the red carpet."  I'm not sure where we'll station ourselves but you can be sure we'll be getting loads of pictures and taking part in every part of the fun that we can.

We are staying in one of the host hotels for most of the preparations and by happy coincidence our new  CANON 70-200/4 L IS lens is arriving just in time to accompany us on this trip. I will be blogging the crap out of this this so check back here in a few weeks time!