A Hobbit's Guide: Disc Golf through Middle Earth
If you’re a Ringer - that is a fan of the Lord of the Rings films- and a disc golfer then we have the perfect reason for you to fly halfway around the world and journey through Middle Earth. You can actually play disc golf in some of the Lord of the Rings key filming locations around New Zealand and they’re all very easy to get to.
HOBBITON
Just over two hours south of the country’s largest city Auckland is the rural town of Matamata. This is where you’ll find the Hobbiton movie set and join a walking tour around the Shire. It was initially built for the first LOTR trilogy on a local Waikato farm and after shooting wrapped most structures were torn down. Die hard fans started trespassing onto the private farm property to explore what was left of the set. The farm owners and film maker Peter Jackson decided to join forces to start bonafide tours. The Shire was completely rebuilt for The Hobbit series.
Head 30 minutes up the Kaimai Ranges and you’ll get to McLaren Falls where one of New Zealand's best disc golf courses is located. The views out to the Bay of Plenty are stunning and this course has a great variety of wooded fairways, fern groves, gullies and steep hills. Plus, there are a number of accommodations here with tracks, glow worms to see at night as well as the falls to dip into after a hot summer round.
MT DOOM
There’s a gnarly volcanic plateau in the centre of the North Island and it’s here you’ll find the active volcano Ngauruhoe in the Tongariro National Park. Peter Jackson chose this particular mountain for Mt Doom because of its perfectly symmetrical cone shape and the fact it is in a fairly desolate area between Mount Ruapahu and Mount Tongariro.
While it’s not illegal to climb Mt Doom, its strongly discouraged for safety and because the peak is sacred (tapu) to the local Maori iwi, Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Ngāti Hikairo ki Tongariro. You can, however, walk past it on what is considered one of the most spectacular and best day walks in the world, the Tongariro Crossing.
Across Lake Taupō from the plateau is the adventure town of Taupo where you’ll find Spa Park disc golf. It’s the only disc golf course outside Europe and the US to make it onto the UDisc Top 100 courses.
GARDENS OF ISENGARD
In the Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf walks with Saruman in the Gardens of Isengard. The two wizards walk through the peaceful gardens surrounding the tower of Orthanc, discussing the growing power of Sauron and the reappearance of the One Ring. This is filmed in Harcourt Park, a public park in Upper Hutt about 40 minutes north of New Zealand’s capital city Wellington.
And you will walk through here too if you play Harcourt Park Disc Golf course to travel between holes. You can see a tee pad in the Gardens of Isengard. This is Wellington's oldest course and plays around the park with a mixture of low ceilings, wooded holes and a small amount of elevation change. The hidden Elven sanctuary Rivendell is very nearby in the Kaitoke Regional Park. The site is marked with a replica Elven archway.
WĒTĀ WORKSHOP
In Wellington is the studio Wētā Workshop which brought Lord of the Rings & The Hobbit to life with its digital and physical effects. The company has also been behind blockbuster films like King Kong and Avatar. You can tour the studio to see how these movie effects brought the LOTR franchise to life.
A short drive from here is Berhampore Hills Disc Golf Course on the same site as the Mornington Golf Club. It is a mix of short wooded holes and long open fairways.
In between Wētā Workshop and the disc golf course, you can stop off and walk up Mt Victoria to find Hobbits Hideaway Track. This is a marked location where they filmed the sequence of the hobbits tumbling down the hill from Farmer Maggots and eventually hiding under tree roots from the Black Rider searching for the ring.
EDORAS/ROHAN
Just over two hours west of Christchurch, the South Island's biggest city, is Mount Sunday. In this fairly remote area of the Rangitata Valley they filmed Edoras, the capital city of Rohan.
There are tours out here but you can just drive and walk the short 1.5km Mount Sunday track to see some of the places used in filming. There are no structures on the site now as it was fully dismantled after filming. Even the drive through this Canterbury location is spectacular but Mount Sunday can be very windy and a lot of the short track is through private property.
Because of its remoteness, there aren't any disc golf courses exactly here but from this location it's a popular tourist driving route to carry on to Tekapo.
The scenery as you drive into Tekapo is beautiful in winter or summer and at this popular destination is where you'll find the Tekapo Family 9. It's a short but very scenic disc golf course that looks out over the mountains and the lake with its distinctive chalky blue colour.
GONDOR
The Battle of Pelennor Fields in Return of the King, the most epic battle scene of the trilogy, is filmed on the private Ben Ohau Station near Twizel. There are guided tours into the station as its not possible to drive there yourself. It was the establishing shots of the battle that were filmed in Twizel where a lot of this very small South Island town's residents were used in the sequences.
Just arriving into Twizel without going to the private Ben Ohau Station gives you some sense of why Jackson chose this location. Twizel has wide open sweeping tussock plains and foothills that run into the mountains. The town also has a popular disc golf course, the Twizel Greenbelt.
ISENGARD
The exterior scenes of Isengard were filmed in Paradise Valley, about 26km north of Glenorchy. This dead end road turns to dirt soon after leaving Glenorchy and can be hard to get through some of the creeks and streams in heavy rain. There are Lord of the Rings tours out to Paradise Valley from Glenorchy. Paradise Trust is a large property in the valley with historic cottages and rustic accommodations dotted around the site that was used extensively for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.
You can also stay here and play disc golf at the Paradise Plates tournament on a stunning pop-up course that runs traditionally at the end of summer each year. Being on the property and playing the tournament is a real experience with Diamond Lake nearby for a cool dip. Gandalf’s Ian McKellen fell in love with the area and named it his favourite place on earth.
