Staying With Friends & Lord Of The Rings Tour

Posted by & filed under Travel Country: New Zealand.

16/2/2012

I arrived in Wellington at 5pm after an eight hour bus ride and was met by a friend of mine, Lucette, who I’d met the last time I was here. I was going to be staying with her and her family for five days and I was looking forward to it. This time my plan was to rediscover Wellington and go back to a few places that I’d been to before. I really like Wellington. It’s one of my favourite cities here in New Zealand.

The next day I headed into the city and went straight into the i-site. My intention was to ask the staff if they had any vacancies, as working in one of the i-sites in New Zealand, for me, would be an ideal job, especially in Wellington. I had email contact with the assistant manager of the i-site, Nick Jones and while I was in New Zealand, I’d sent him an email and left two messages on his voicemail but got no reply from him. So I asked the girl behind the counter if I could speak to him. I got to talk to him surprisingly, for about ten minutes.

I say surprisingly because I had imagined talking to him for the last two years and now, without an appointment, I actually made it happen! He said that there were no job vacancies at the moment with the i-site because it’s the off-peak season but they would be advertising in September. He advised me to contact a tour operator in Wellington that might be looking for staff. I had a walk down by the waterfront before I went back to Lucette’s place in Karori.

On Friday, I did a Lord of The Rings:Wellington Rover Tour. That morning though, I was up at 6am because I said I would go with Lucette, Paul and her two boys, Byron and Keegan to breakfast with them in town. Once a week, they go as a family to this Belgian café on Featherston Street and are finished in time to go to school and work. My tour was at 8.30am anyway, so I didn’t mind getting up this early. After breakfast, I was picked up by Wellington Rover. Our guide Nathan, was very good and had a lot of information about the filming of the movie. He was an extra in the film so he was full of stories and gave us lots of interesting information about the making of the film.

I had taken this tour before but I wanted to get over to Miramar to see the new Roxy Cinema, which was recently opened. The tour was good and afterwards I did get a look at the cinema. It is beautiful but I must admit, I much prefer the Embassy Theatre. There are nice art deco touches inside the foyer and in some of the corridors and there is a fantastic mural on the ceiling in the bar upstairs. But I just prefer the atmosphere of the Embassy, with all the photos of the premiere of the Lord of The Rings upstairs.