Lord of the Rings Tour

The 4WD is the point. Nomad Safaris built this trip around country you cannot reach in a coach — an old gold-mining road following the Arrow River, farm tracks and river crossings — and the Lord of the Rings locations are strung along it. You will stand at the Pillars of the Kings, where the Argonath loomed over the Anduin, and at the sites that stood in for Minas Tirith, the Misty Mountains, the Gladden Fields and the Ford of Bruinen. Your driver-guide does the talking, and the landscape does the rest. Between locations the road opens onto panoramic views over the whole Wakatipu Basin, and there is a stop to try gold panning on the Arrow — the same river that started the 1862 rush and paid for most of Arrowtown. It is a genuine half day: four hours, hotel pickup and drop-off from selected Queenstown hotels included, back in town for lunch. Worth knowing before you book: this is the Arrowtown side of Middle-earth. If you are specifically chasing Isengard and Lothlorien, those were filmed up at Glenorchy and Paradise, and Nomad runs a separate Glenorchy tour that goes there instead. Autumn (March to May) is the pick for scenery, when the tussock and the Arrowtown poplars turn.