17-20 February 2025

Kia ora,

It’s already been a week since our last blog so we figured it’s time for the next installment. We spent three nights in Wellington – the first full day (Tuesday) was another Lord of the Rings tour. Our guide was knowledgeable about New Zealand’s history, flora, and fauna as well as the movies. 

The movie director, Peter Jackson, rented over 20 houses in Wellington to house the major cast members and crew so their families could join them.

After filming a few scenes in a park near Wellington (the road to the Prancing Pony and more of the outer shire, as well as more Isengard), he met with the town council and to thank them. He noted there weren’t any play structures for kids and asked if he funded half of some improvements, would the town pay the other half. The park now has a few different play structures, a couple of paved pathways for easier access to various areas, and public bathrooms.

Our tour then stopped at Weta Workshop, which made tens of thousands of props for the Lord of the Rings movies and has grown significantly since then. They went on to do other notable movies as well as museum exhibits and more.

The tour also stopped at several filming locations further out of Wellington, including the river the Fellowship rides down near the end of the first movie, the quarry where parts of both Helm’s Deep and Minas Tirith were built and filmed, and the forest where Rivendell was filmed.

On Wednesday, we went to Te Papa, the most notable museum in Wellington. The tour was a little over an hour and used a smattering of the exhibits to communicate some of the key points in New Zealand history.

New Zealand separated from Gondwana – the landmass that once included present-day New Zealand, Australia, and Antarctica – about 70-85 million years ago. The ocean acted as a barrier that prevented many flora and fauna arriving from elsewhere, though there were a few pre-colonial exceptions.

About 16 million years ago, kiwi ancestors flew to the island. Their only natural predator was the now-extinct laughing owl, so kiwis were safer on the ground. Eventually their wings grew shorter and shorter and they developed heavier, marrow-filled bones and warmer, hair-like feathers. Though they appear to have a long beak, it’s scientifically considered to be the shortest bird beak in the world as they are measured from nostril to tip, and the kiwi’s nostril is near the tip.Māori ancestors arrived from Polynesia between 1250-1300 CE. They would have encountered the moa – a now-extinct, flightless bird. (While the moa are unrelated to the kiwi, it’s likely they evolved similarly after migrating to the island). There were several species, the smallest being about the size of a turkey and the largest being 12 feet tall and 510 pounds.

While the Māori were generally mindful about sustaining animal populations they relied upon for food, perhaps the moa were the first lesson in doing so because they are thought to be completely extinct before white colonizers arrived. The Māori brought rats, which ate the eggs and chicks; they anlso over-hunted the moa. And, it’s possible that uncontrolled fires contributed to destruction of the moa’s habitat. 

The only known non-human predator of the moa was the Haast’s eagle, which had a wingspan of up to to 3 meters and the females (larger than the males) could weigh up to about 40 pounds. There are even stories from the Māori of the eagles taking children.

Haast’s eagles went extinct around the same time as the moa, but the Māori overlapped with the moa and Haast’s eagles for over 100 years.

The Māori also brought dogs over with them. I couldn’t find much information on whether these dogs were problematic for the existing animals, though they were almost certainly too small to present a threat to the moa. We do know that any Māori wanting to hunt kiwi needed permission from the tribal leaders, and there were only certain times of year when this was allowed.

White settlers later brought over more dogs and ultimately, both wild and pet dogs have been a serious problem for kiwis, killing off adults.