📍Pukerua Bay, Porirua, Wellington, New Zealand
1961 – 1980“Peter Jackson grew up in Pukerua Bay, a small seaside village on the coast about forty minutes north of Wellington, the only child of Bill and Joan Jackson, who had emigrated from England. When a family friend gave the Jacksons a Super 8 cine-camera, he began making films with his friends among the hills, bush and beaches around the village. King Kong was his favourite film, and at about nine he tried to remake it with his own stop-motion models; he also made a Second World War epic with his friends, scratching pinholes into the film to make gunshots, and a James Bond spoof. He left school at seventeen and became an apprentice photo-engraver at Wellington's Evening Post newspaper, spending weekends and savings shooting a science-fiction splatter comedy in the hills above Pukerua Bay; four years later it became his first feature, Bad Taste. He has made New Zealand his base ever since, building the studios and workshops in Wellington where The Lord of the Rings was made, and the Hobbiton set near Matamata is now one of the country's best-loved attractions.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today