I can't say I wasn't warned.

The Wellington Rover website distinctly says: "...Wellington has evolved to be New Zealand's best city (we might be a little biased)."

So I was expecting a tad of local patriotism. But I wasn't prepared for Nathan.

Nathan is zeal personified.

Tall and lean with wide shining eyes, he's dressed casually but carefully, emanating effortless style. He accessorizes with a sharp greenstone twist spiked through one earlobe and a wooden, Gandalf-like walking stick.

"Snowboarding injury," he says, by way of explanation, for he is far too young to need a cane.

Secretly, I'm thankful for the cane. I'm sure that without it Nathan's great gusto, infectious though it is, could have swept him off in leaps and bound, leaving me straggling behind.

"I love Wellington," he declares at the start of our Wellington Explorer Tour. "I'm gonna tell you now, but you'll work it out anyway. I love it!"

From the roaring gale that whips hats off and tangles hair atop Mount Victoria ("We call it invigorating!"), to the rainbow of character-filled houses documenting Wellington's history, suburb by suburb, Nathan overtly, fervently loves it all.

We begin in the central city. As Nathan manoeuvres the Rover Tours van through the frenetic working weekday streets I'm as absorbed by the sights outside as I am by his endearing, genuine passion for Wellington.

We cruise past the "alternative precinct" of Cuba Street, humming with late lunchers.

"Wellington has more cafes [per capita] than any other city in the world," explains Nathan.

"Cafes and art. That's what Wellington's all about."

As we inch along Courtenay Place we pass the Embassy Theatre, home of the world premiere of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

"Peter Jackson put in $5 million to restore that place to its original 1920s glory.

"Apparently the ladies bathrooms are just amazing!" he laughs.

It soon becomes obvious that there is nothing Nathan doesn't know about Wellington.

While the van creeps through the suburb of Newtown, he regales me with the history of the San Francisco style housing." At the city greenbelt he recounts his first-person experience of the Lord of the Rings filming. Wending our way through steep suburbs and rocky coastlines, Nathan informs me how many private cable cars there are, sitting innocuously below teetering houses, waiting to hoist residents up to their homes. He recites dates and facts, provides titbits and tales, engrossing all the while.

"People power rules here," he explains, as we discuss the lack of commercial development along the lovely craggy coastline of Lyall, Houghton and Island Bays. "The people of Wellington don't want high-rises and restaurants ruining their coast."

As a result, there is just a smattering of tiny cafes spread throughout the bays that wiggle around the greater city limits. Apartments can only be developed in the almost-inner-city suburb of Oriental Bay and the only 'commercial' construction allowed near the coastline is for recreational buildings, like athletic or surf lifesaving clubs.

"Locals are very proud in defending their city," says Nathan as he points out Waitangi Park - the site that was originally earmarked by the council for apartments but which, after five years of residents' dispute, ended up as it is today - a stylishly landscaped public park.

Even the city's most famous resident isn't into flashy buildings and developments. "Peter Jackson lives in the same house he lived in before the Lord of the Rings," Nathan tells me as we cut inland to the quiet suburb of Miramar.

"And now, welcome to New Zealand's premier filming studios!" he grandly announces as we pull up outside an old paint factory.

I look around for a sign, a billboard, perhaps a tell-tale celebrity. Nothing. "This is Stone Street Studios - Peter Jackson's studios.

"If you didn't know any better you wouldn't know what was going on."

But luckily I've got Nathan to tell me that currently there's a multi-million dollar production in progress, and we even spot the green-screen and marquees out the back to prove it.

"We get people lining up for our Lord of the Rings tours," says Nathan, who played an elf in the movies that were now filmed almost a decade ago.

Wellington Rover Tours was the first company to start the successful movie-focused tours and now offers full-day and half-day options visiting all the key local filming spots.

The company doesn't go inside any of the filming studios or into Weta Workshops because, "we like to focus on letting these people be people; letting them do their job.

"Peter Jackson is a good son of Wellington and he's done a lot for the city. In return, we leave him alone."

When Nathan says 'we' he means all the people of Wellington. He uses the expression frequently and although he's encompassing the opinions and actions of New Zealand's entire capital city population in one, I get the feeling he's not in error.

Despite Wellington city's 180,000-strong population, everyone seems to know everyone. "You go into town and you're always waving and saying hi and bumping into people you know. It's great!" says Nathan.

"This place is so small, and yet it's so diverse.

"We've got all the public servants working here and a lot of business people and then two universities so, for example, it's not uncommon to see someone in a suit, but with dreadlocks, or someone in a T-shirt who actually runs a business.

"We also have the most culturally diverse suburb in New Zealand, where there are 120 languages spoken in the one area!

"It's so diverse and yet there's none of that prejudice that you get in other places. You get so many different people here that everyone just goes about, smiling, doing their own thing."

What it all comes down to in the end, says Nathan, is that "Wellington people love their city."

Amelia experienced Wellington Rover Tours courtesy of Positively Wellington Tourism.

Amelia is Content Editor for the New Zealand travel and tourism website www.fourcorners.co.nz.