Today our main attraction was, unfortunately, the longest drive on the North Island: six hours from Lake Taupo to Wellington. Luckily we were able to punctuate the long drive with fun side trips. As you know, we love side trips. Our drive south from Lake Taupo took us first through Tongariro National Park, New Zealand’s first national park.

Recognize that haunting sillhouette? That is Peter Jackson’s inspiration for Mount Doom, called Mount Ngauruhoe. Ngaruhoe is tapu (sacred) to the Maori, so they were unable to film on the actual mountain peak. Far off scenes of Mount Doom were either CGI or a model, or a combination of the two. Some close up scenes were filmed on the slopes of Ruapehu. You can go a decent way up both mountains, and the track (hike) between them is one of the most popular in New Zealand – you need reservations just to walk on it.

Mount Ruapehu from afar. After taking some photos, we continued south through the park and followed our guidebook to Tauro Ski Area, on the southern part of Ruapehu. This is where they filmed many scenes taking place in Mordor, as well as some specific scenes the Two Towers of Gollum catching fish. And you might be laughing at our nerd dedication at this point. It’s a fun excuse to see parts of this strange and wild country we would never have bothered with otherwise, so nerd culture for the win!

Imagine this hill swarming with Orcs while Frodo and Sam blend in with their Elvish cloaks. YES. It was cold at the summit though, so we drove back down the windy steep road. We kept our keen elf eyes open to find kilometer marker 14, where our guidebook says Gollum caught a fish in a stream. Umm. Well then. Good thing Checkers and I have watched those movies a million times!

My only wish, to catch a fish, so juicy sweeeet! And we may be extrapolating here, but we think we found the Forbidden Pool as well, where Gollum catches a fish (he likes doing that) and is almost shot by Faramir’s men. Our guidebook told us to look for Mangawhero falls, and this is it.

Maybe? We thought so. Just imagine more of a waterfall with the secret cave behind it. Well, this is all we had time to see in the national park, so we finally rejoined what they deem state highways and continued south to Wellington. But was this is the end of the the Lord of the Rings side tours? I DON’T THINK SO.

This is the Rangatiki River, and also one of the four rivers they used to portray the River Anduín when the Fellowship canoes down towards Amon Hen from Lothlorien, and the conclusion of the Fellowship of the Ring. Coincidentally, the supposed tallest bungee jump in New Zealand, but it was closed.

From here, we had another three hours to go, and driving in New Zealand, while slightly more exciting than in the US (left side of the road, windy narrow highways, no streetlights), it is still driving. We arrived without incident in Wellington, and a long comfortable stay at Beachfront Bed and Breakfast awaited us.

*****Written by Laura*****

• New Zealand 2016-17