In December of 2003, Red Carpet Tours offered a singular opportunity -- the chance to tour the magnificent landscapes of New Zealand during the days surrounding the premiere of New Line Cinema's epic film finale to J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.  The Tour itself was a massive undertaking, ultimately involving over four times the size of Red Carpet's largest tour to date.  In addition to this factor, thousands of media, celebrities, and fans were also descending onto New Zealand for the premiere and all the subsequent festivities.  Something wonderful happened and I'm sure everyone had a magnificent time.  One thing is certain, no one who sets foot in the wondrous country of New Zealand and partakes of its majesty, leaves it without a longing to return and a special place for Kiwi's in their heart.

These pages are a pathetic attempt to try and capture a tiny part of my experience on the Red Carpet Tour's 'Return of the King Premiere' Tour.  I kept a journal and you will find that here along with pictures and video (coming soon).  Where appropriate, I have tried to put an image from the films in order to better illustrate how the locations were used.   I have tried to organize the pages according to the itinerary of the tour.  Please excuse any misspellings, omissions, or incorrect names, as these errors are not intentional.  Also, because of the large number of images on some of the pages, please allow for longer than average load times.

 

Background	Leaving the Ordinary World
Day 1	Day 2 (Hobbiton)
Day 3 (Mordor & Emyn Muil)	Day 4 (Wellington 1, Howard Shore Concert)
Day 5 (Wellington 2, Lorien, TORN Party)	Day 6 (Barad-Dur - Premiere Day)
Day 7 (Christchurch)	Day 8 - (Edoras)
Day 9 (Pellenor, Westfold Village, Rohan)	Day 10 (Silverlode, Fangorn Forest, Anduin)
Day 11  (Milford Sound)	Day 12 (Amon Hen, Rohan refugee lake)
Day 13 (Queenstown, Rafting)	Day 14 (Queenstown, Jet Boating, Horseback riding)
Day 15 & The Return	(NEW) Ellen's Video Travel Diary!
VIDEO PART 1 Hey!  I finally got Part 1 of the New Zealand Tour footage edited together.  I'm putting two versions up for the time being, although I don't think it will stay this way for long.  The WMV version is around 10.5 Megs, and a Quicktime version is a whopping 50 Megs, but any more compression made it unwatchable.  (Running time ~ 10 minutes) ROTK-TOUR WMV (10.5 Megs) (right-click and select save-as) ROTK-TOUR  Quicktime (50 Megs) (You may need the latest FREE Quicktime player at www.quicktime.com to play the quicktime version, since it uses the Sorenson3 codec.)	VIDEO PART 2 Part 2 of the New Zealand Tour footage is edited together.  This covers mostly the South Island.   WMV Version is roughly 12 Megs, Quicktime version rounds out at about 42 Megs. (Running time ~ 10 minutes) ROTK-TOUR PT2  WMV (12 Megs) (right click and select save-as) ROTK-TOUR PT2 Quicktime (42 Megs) (You may need the latest FREE Quicktime player at www.quicktime.com to play the quicktime version, since it uses the Sorenson3 codec.)

Throughout the other pages click on the White Tree of Gondor to move to the next section.

Also, not connected with the tour but it has to do with LOTR, I've linked my reports from attending the TORN Oscar Parties over here just for ease of reference.

The Two Towers: One Party

The Return of the One Party

Okay, now click the White Tree to get on with the tour!

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