Over the past few days, we’ve had an amazing time in Wellington. We’ve been staying in house number 12.

The house is perched high on a bluff overlooking Wellington Harbor, where passing rain showers have given rainbow after rainbow.

We’ve all been catching up on work a bit. Lydie, Cassie, and I all finished our online scuba certification course. We were also invited to a wonderful home-cooked dinner by some friends of friends, Peter and Pam Churchman. The menu was traditionally New Zealand — trout from Lake Taupo caught by Pam’s friend, lamb from their daughters farm on the South Island, and pavlova for dessert — a confectionary combination of merengue, fruit, and cream.

Even better, Peter and Pam were simply delightful people, and we enjoyed their company immensely.

On July 15, we got a new team member for the next couple of weeks — our cousin Connor. He hit a few snags on his trip here, as his flight from Auckland to Wellington was unfortunately cancelled, but eventually he made it. He quickly got a sense of what he was in for with Team Hubbard when we twisted his jet-lagged arms into taking a picture with the life-sized head of Smaug at the airport.

That night, Julie and I went to dinner with some friends of friends, while the wrinkle-free crowd stayed home and introduced Connor to some the fine work of the Marlborough vineyards.

The next morning we went on a tour of the Wētā Workshops, the special effects geniuses who’ve made movies like the Lord of the Rings, Dune, and Avatar come to life. To get there we had to drive to the far side of Wellington harbor via the Mount Victoria Tunnel. As we drove, we joined the Wellingtonian tradition of honking to ward away the ghost of a pregnant woman buried alive by her boyfriend underneath the tunnel during its construction. He was later hanged.

I don’t know if there or ghosts or if honking would be enough to keep them away, but we did love that this story has earned the tunnel the moniker “toot tunnel.”

We soon reached Wētā, and the tour was amazing! We all had a particularly great time in the weapons room, which showcased the swords, maces, bows, shields, axes, and guns from various movies that Wētā has worked on. There were full-sized suits of armor, including LOTR favorites like Sauron, Uruk Hai, and Rohirrim. We also saw pieces of armor and swords that were dramatically oversized to create certain visual effects, like a double-sized sword from the live-action Mulan, which was used for close-ups. We also saw a giant disembodied foot of Sauron used to stomp on and shatter Elendil’s sword in LOTR. Of course, the huge foot was next to the shards of the sword (still sharp!).

We next passed to a room where we could finally take some pictures and play with some weapon and armor props.

We also had a chance to operate some of the animatronics.

Perhaps the strongest message from the tour was a forward-looking exhortation to embrace creativity. This is an active design studio, that strives to blend imagination and realism. It’s a mindset as well as a skill set. For instance, our guide described for us discussions of “speculative biology” that shaped the portrayal of beasts from centaurs (Where are their hearts?) to trolls (How long can their legs be?). In one room, a designer spoke in rapturous tones about the creative power of tin foil.

We were then given tin foil to stoke our own creative fires. Julie made a whale spouting water, and I add a flexing giant king.

I think we may need to stick with our day jobs, but I loved the creative call to action.

We ended the tour with a quick photo that showed off some of Wētā’s technology – a green screen without a green screen. We were simply in a room with a nondescript background, but Wētā could nonetheless replace the backgrounds. This evidently helps actors engage with the scene. They can be in a space with some elements from the movie or show rather than acting against a grossly artificial green screen. Even without a green screen, commitment in our party to the scene varied somewhat from actor to actor.

It was a wonderful tour. I was particularly impressed to learn about the many projects that Wētā has worked other than LOTR. I guess I’d pigeonholed them a bit. It’s probably what Wētā is best known for, but it’s just a small part of their portfolio. That said, we quickly went back to our LOTR ways, starting with a little wrassling with the cave trolls outside of the gift shop.

From Wētā it was a shockingly short drive to some LOTR filming locations in the nearby Alexandra Park, which was directly above the ghost tunnel where we’d honked. As we looked around for filming locations, we saw our first Kākā, another type of forest parrot found only in New Zealand.

The bird was using his sharp beak to score deep lines into the bark of the trees to get at the sap. After a little more exploring, we found the filming locations we’d been looking for, starting with this scene:

For our version, we didn’t have the Wētā-added tree roots to hide under. But the trees in the background were the same, despite the passage of 25 years.

Not far from this spot, we found the scene where Sam and Frodo camped out after leaving the Shire.

This tree is almost exactly the same.

Leaving the park, Lydie and Cassie also found a rope swing, which naturally they had to try. Kids, amiright?

Okay, fine. I swung on it, too. It was a great location, with Wellington rising in the distance. How could I not?!

-Will