Outside of Auckland, North Island
On to Wellington
Wellington, on the North Island, is the nation’s capital. It is at the southernmost tip of the north island, on the Cook Strait. Superb views of this vibrant city are on offer from adjacent Mount Victoria.
Wellington has a lovely harbor and offers wonderful shopping, dining and cultural activities, as well as arts festivals are held all year round.
It is a very wet city, and despite being there in spring, and having been in teeshirts the whole time in Auckland, Paihia and Rotorua, I was COLD! So cold that I was wearing my thermal underwear and almost all the clothes I had with me, and I still had to buy a fleece. And I was there in spring!
Your first port of call should be the tourist board, to find out what is on and make your bookings as soon as possible.
The Lord of the Rings tour of many of the sites used for filming, plus a glimpse of Peter Jackson’s house and studios, was excellent, giving you a great feel for the city as well as the films, and taking you out to some really unspoiled wilderness, as well as the Botanic gardens where they did some filming.
You will also get to go to the seaside and yummy Chocolate Fish café, the actors’ home away from home as it were for the three years they were there working on the project. They all lived with host families, for the most part, and so the anecdotes your local guide tells you are fascinating and fun. For example, Viggo Mortensen was nearly arrested for carrying around his sword everywhere, trying to get into the role of Strider/Aragorn!
The Chocolate Fish Café was in danger of losing its place due to high rents, but it has a sister café and it did all the catering for the day tour for us, yummy.
The parks around Wellington were all lovely, and it is great to see it all in person—no, it was NOT all computer generated, you can REALLY go to a lot of the places from the film. It was a long day, but well worth it.
Another fabulous thing to do is take the cable car up the hill to the botanic gardens and observatory, where you can often see free shows and hear lectures on the sky at night over New Zealand. The cable car is, oddly enough, situated next to the McDonalds’ on one of the high streets! Blink and you will miss it. It takes you up to one of the university campuses, a glorious cricket field and the top of the hill.
http://www.wellingtontrams.org.nz/
If you are feeling fit, you can walk back down. The view from the top of the harbor and the city is breathtaking.
Not too far away is the The Colonial Cottage Museum, Wellington’s oldest identified building, which was built by carpenter, William Wallis, in 1858. This was a time when candles were made from tallow and when the nails used to build the Cottage were imported.

Displays show the ways in which the first colonials blended their lives from their Victorian homeland with the dictates of a new country. Enjoy the garden, the remaining portion of an 1840 New Zealand Company Town Acre, on which the Cottage was built.
http://www.colonialcottagemuseum.co.nz/home.html