We signed up for a small group tour called In the Footsteps of Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson is from Wellington, and his Weta studio is located there. He filmed all three Lord of the Rings movies in two years, filming the movies not chronologically but by location. He then edited and released each movie. The movies cost several hundred million to make, but they grossed three billion (so far). Jackson had 8 cameras working at various locations around NZ, and he watched the footage from all 8 locations in his tent on location and approved each shot.
Our first stop was a rock quarry just outside of town, which Peter Jackson rented for a year and where he constructed the sets for Helms Deep and Mynas Tirith. 
The quarry is located on a major highway, so motorists would have seen the castle rising from the quarry, but it was not until a newspaper reporter took an illicit night-time photo that they knew it was for a movie set.
It took six months and 100 men to build the set, which was made largely of styrofoam blocks painted to look like stone. The stairs, however, were carved into the rock of the quarry with jackhammers over a period of four weeks, and appeared in the movie for only four seconds.Today, it is just an ordinary quarry. On-location clips from the movies were shown in the van, which helped us visualize each scene.
Next, we traveled to the Hutt Valley where a number of scenes were filmed. Harcourt Park is where Gandalf’s approach to Isengard, the Gardens of Isengard, and the Orks cutting down trees of Isengard were filmed. Our guide, Karen, showed us pictures of the bridge Gandalf rides under as he approaches Isengard. As you can see from the pictures, only a half bridge was built, and camera angles did the rest. The slight rise on her right is the fault line that runs through Wellington.Saruman’s castle was built in the studio, so Gandalf had to stop on a mark in front of a blue screen and deliver his lines to no one.
The scenes where the Orks tear up the trees was filmed in the disk golf field just below.
Next, we drove into a suburban neighborhood and took a footpath down to the Hutt Valley River to see where the Aragorn Washed Ashore scene was filmed. The battle scene that precedes it was filmed in Queensland, but apparently, the horse that was supposed to rescue Aragorn could not perform the trick of lying down next to him without lying on top of the stunt dummy. Vigo Mortensen found a second horse and worked with it until it learned the trick and they filmed it just outside of Wellington. Vigo grew so attached to the horse that he bought him and took him home with him.
Next we visited the Kaitoke Regional Park where the Rivendell scenes were filmed. We had a picnic lunch and learned that our guide, an American who had come to NZ to visit Lord of the Rings sights and emigrated (because her profession, social work, was in demand), had been Hobbit extra in the last Hobbit movie and got to meet all the primary actors and Peter Jackson.
She was the perfect guide.
The Rivindell gate was recreated here, and I was able to dress up as Legolas in the same spot he posed for one of his most famous publicity shots.
The Hutt Valley River funs through here with a suspension bridge over it.
The tree ferns are beautiful and lend a distinctive Elvish atmosphere to the area.