Upper Hutt

Where it sits. Upper Hutt is a city of roughly 48,000 people at the head of the Hutt Valley, about thirty kilometres northeast of central Wellington. It occupies a flat alluvial floor a couple of kilometres wide, hemmed in by the Tararua foothills on one side and the Remutaka Range on the other, with the Hutt River — Te Awa Kairangi — running the length of it. The confinement defines the place: a single main road, a single railway line, and steep bush-covered hills rising directly behind the last row of houses in every direction. It is often five degrees colder than Wellington on a winter morning and noticeably warmer in February, because the ranges block the wind that dominates the harbour city.

How it grew. The valley was a route long before it was a town — a Māori trail between the Wellington harbour and the Wairarapa, then the road and rail corridor over the Remutaka. The Rimutaka Incline, opened in 1878, used Fell engines gripping a raised centre rail to haul trains up a gradient of one in fifteen over the range, and operated until the Remutaka Tunnel replaced it in 1955. Its formation is now the Remutaka Rail Trail, a 115-kilometre cycle and walking route to the Wairarapa passing through the old tunnels. Trentham, at the southern end of the city, holds one of New Zealand's principal racecourses and, historically, a large army camp; Upper Hutt's twentieth-century growth came from that military and railway employment plus post-war state housing. The name is inherited from the valley itself, called after Sir William Hutt, a director of the New Zealand Company who never visited; the river's Māori name, Te Awa Kairangi, has since been formally restored alongside it. Trentham Racecourse, opened in 1906, still hosts the Wellington Cup and its grandstand is one of the older sporting structures in the country, while the Wallaceville site north of it housed a government animal research station for most of the twentieth century.

On screen. Harcourt Park, on Akatarawa Road beside the Hutt River just north of the centre, was the gardens of Isengard. Three separate Isengard scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring were shot here: Gandalf riding in along the tree-lined avenue toward Orthanc; Saruman meeting him and the two wizards walking together through the gardens as they discuss Sauron's return and the finding of the Ring; and the associated garden coverage before Isengard is turned into a pit of forges. The tower itself never existed on the ground — Orthanc was a miniature and a digital element added over the real trees and lawns. What remains is a public park with mature specimen trees, wide grass, a rose garden and a playground, entirely unmarked as a film set apart from a modest sign. Fifteen minutes further north, Kaitoke Regional Park — also within the Upper Hutt city boundary — holds the Rivendell site, and stretches of the Hutt River between the two supplied water footage cut into the River Anduin sequence.

What else is here. The Hutt River Trail runs the valley floor for around thirty kilometres, largely sealed and flat, linking Upper Hutt to Lower Hutt and the harbour, and it is the best way to see the river's succession of gravel beaches and swimming holes. Tunnel Gully Recreation Area, at Kaitoke, offers short forest loops around an old railway tunnel. Staglands Wildlife Reserve in the Akatarawa Valley keeps native and farm species in a bush setting and is squarely aimed at families. Expressions Whirinaki on Fergusson Drive is the city's arts centre and gallery. Brewtown, a converted industrial site, has become a cluster of craft breweries and eating places, which is the closest thing the city has to a destination district.

Getting there and timing. Upper Hutt is the terminus of the Hutt Valley railway line, with frequent electric services from Wellington taking about forty-five minutes — genuinely useful, because it means the Isengard park is reachable without a car, though Kaitoke is not. State Highway 2 runs through on the way to the Wairarapa. Summer and early autumn are the seasons to be here: the river is warm enough to swim, the trails are dry, and the valley gets more settled weather than the coast. Winter is grey, damp and frosty, and the hills hold cloud. The city centre and the river trail are flat and well surfaced; Harcourt Park has sealed paths, level lawns and accessible parking, which makes it the easiest Middle-earth location in the country to reach with limited mobility.