New Zealand: an epic adventure

Twenty-five years ago, filming began on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings franchise, putting the New Zealand landscape firmly in the spotlight.

Steep-sided fiords framed by star-lit skies, spreading forests and rolling hills, plus some of the most dramatic beach-fringed shores on Earth: all have been showcased in his epic film adaptations of JRR Tolkien’s masterpiece.

According to Tourism New Zealand, a third of tourists visit at least one of the 150-plus filming locations spread out across this South Pacific wonderland, perhaps hoping to spot a stray hobbit or a flash of Gandalf’s grey beard.

This fascination with the landscape isn’t going to go away, thanks to the Amazon series The Rings of Power and that The Hunt for Gollum is set to be released in 2026.

Auckland

After arriving on the North Island at the international airport in Auckland – New Zealand’s largest city – the perfect way to blow away jet lag is an hour’s drive to the majestic volcanic beaches of Piha and Anawhata. These locations star in Amazon's The Rings of Power series.

Auckland is also a good base for film fanatics keen to visit the set of Hobbiton in Matamata, where Bilbo Baggins lived.

I like to relax in hip neighbourhoods such as Ponsonby, or take a ferry to the period enclave of Devonport and vineyard-dotted Waiheke Island, whose Mudbrick restaurant and winery has long attracted A-listers such as Taylor Swift and Cindy Crawford.

Auckland Domain, the city’s largest park, is an urban Eden topped by the historic Auckland Museum, while the outstanding Toi o Tāmaki contemporary gallery beckons in the bustling cosmopolitan central district.

Two hours’ drive from Auckland, the idyllic Coromandel Peninsula is the location for The Rings of Power screen kingdom of Numenor.

Once a wild 19th-century gold-rush destination, today it’s a melange of glorious beaches such as Cathedral Cove, while the wooded interior is dotted with old mines, historic trails and waterfalls, plus atmospheric Victorian townships full of hip cafés and little galleries.

Wellington

Instead of flying between New Zealand’s two main cities, I take my cue from the young Peter Jackson, who decided his homeland could double up as Middle-earth while on train rides between Auckland and Wellington.

It’s an 11-hour trip on today’s Northern Explorer with its open-air viewing carriages and at-seat audio guides.

I’m as dazzled by the route’s bizarre giant trackside artworks as I am by the brooding volcanoes of the Tongariro National Park, which Jackson later filmed as Mount Doom, the only place where the hobbits can destroy the One Ring.

Set on multiple bays framed by the Wairarapa vineyards, Wellington has superb museums such as Te Papa and the Dowse – which showcase Māori history and contemporary art respectively – and a boho vibe fuelled by more bars, cafés and restaurants per capita than New York.

Must-visits are haute Māori cuisine restaurant Hiakai, veteran Ortega Fish Shack, plus Boulcott Street Bistro inside an 1870s cottage. Film fans can enjoy a Wētā Workshop tour in Miramar, then explore the LOTR locations in the city.

Surfer hangout Lyall Bay became Tolkien’s cliff top fortress Dunharrow, while bush-clad Mount Victoria staged key early scenes such as our hero hobbits hiding from the black riders.

Check out Wellington’s gorgeous period cinemas, too, most famously the 1920s Embassy, host of multiple LOTR premieres.

South Island

A grand way to get to the South Island is via the three-hour ferry ride from Wellington to the palm-fringed port of Picton. While visitors flock to Fiordland National Park and mountain-ringed Queenstown, the eastern flank is less touristy but no less magnificent.

Take the Coastal Pacific train from Picton past Marlborough vineyards and the pink-hued Lake Grassmere saltpans before meeting the South Pacific, hugging the shore for an hour as it travels into the whale-watching capital of Kaikōura, where whales can be seen all year round close to shore.

This township is framed by dark sand beaches and a spur of the Southern Alps zig-zagging down into the sea, creating canyons that are underwater highways for sperm whales, blue whales and orcas – 95% of trips have a sighting.

You can potter amid clapboard and art deco architecture and tuck into the dish that gives the town its name (Kaikōura is Maori for ‘meal of crayfish’).

While visitors flock to Fiordland National Park and mountain-ringed Queenstown, the eastern flank is less touristy but no less magnificent

Continuing into the deep south, Dunedin, on the edge of the Otago region, was New Zealand’s most prestigious town for decades when Auckland and Wellington were hicksville backwaters. Fashioned by Scottish settlers as a homage to Edinburgh (Dunedin in Gaelic), its gorgeous architecture – from Victorian to art deco – is underlaid by a cultural buzz.

A Saturday here can start with the Farmers’ Market in the historic train station yard, and end watching tiny blue penguins scamper across a moonlit beach.

In this Unesco Creative City of Literature, you can see where Captain Scott left for the Antarctic. The locals refuel at harbourside seafood hangout Plato, hip Titi by St Clair beach, or Vogel Street Kitchen in the cool Warehouse Precinct.

And alongside old gold-mining towns and NZ’s best wineries, Otago boasts perhaps the most classic LOTR locations of all, around Glenorchy on Lake Wakatipu. These green plains and towering peaks provided the elvish kingdom of Lothlórien, which Tolkien described as the fairest part of Middle-earth. What more encouragement do you need?