There and back again, a road trip tale

Like I said in my previous post, before Taylor and I settle into real life in New Zealand, we had about a week in vacation mode to road trip down the country. I know the main thing people are here for is the pictures, so I'll try to keep the rest pretty brief!

Edit: I did not, in fact, keep it brief. So if you just want to look at pictures or see more of our trip than I could fit here, you can view those here.

A lot of people seem to think of New Zealand as a tiny island that you can take a quick walk across. While it's true that it's several islands and certainly not huge, it's a lot bigger than most people think! Our journey took us from Auckland near the top of the North Island, across the Cook Strait, to Taylor's hometown Waimate (about two thirds of the way down the South Island). In total, this was about 1262 kilometers (or 784 miles), which is about the same distance as Cleveland to Savannah, Georgia, or Memphis to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Our landing point (and the landing point for most international flights) was New Zealand's largest city, Auckland. We stuck around a few days, mainly to deal with some logistics before we picked up our car. Most of our down time was spent relaxing and recovering from our flight, but we did do some city exploring as we took trains and buses from our hotel near the airport to the northern suburb where we picked up our car. We also picked up a few groceries and I was very entertained by the American section in the international aisle. After a few days, we got on the road and headed south!

Hobbiton - I'm going on an adventure!

The most anticipated stop lay about half an hour into our drive, in the small town of Matamata: home of Hobbiton. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy is my all time favorite book/movie series, so I will try very hard not to ramble too much here in particular. Long story short, when the film director Peter Jackson was scouting locations for the Shire (the homeland of Frodo and the other hobbits), somewhere peaceful and pastoral. The original plan was to have multiple hobbit sets spread across New Zealand based on specific locations of the Shire described by J.R.R. Tolkien. While viewing the aerial footage in this area, one specific thing caught Jackson's eye: a huge pine tree by a lake, perfect for the Party Tree that would lie at the center of Bilbo Baggins' 111th birthday party.

This tree turned out to be part of a 560 hectare sheep and cattle farm owned by the local Alexander family. As the story goes, Jackson went up to the farm house to ask permission to use the farm as a filming location, but Mr. Alexander, who had never heard of Jackson or Lord of the Rings told him he needed to leave the property as they were in the middle of watching the rugby final. Luckily, Jackson went back the next day and was allowed to check out the farm. He realized that not only was this a perfect set for Bilbo's party, but actually looked the part for the rest of Hobbiton as well. For filming the original Lord of the Rings trilogy in 1999, all the Hobbiton exteriors were built to be temporary and were torn down when filming was complete. Even with the sets being gone, LOTR fans started showing up at the farm asking to see the hills where the sets had been. So, when the team came back to start filming the Hobbit in 2011 the Alexanders had one request - make the sets permanent. They now get more than 500,000 visitors a year while still operating their farm.

Again, I could literally talk about this all day. So to keep it short, here are a few of my favorite facts I learned from our Hobbiton tour guide.

1. Our guide said she asks every group she takes who has seen the movies before - about 1/3 said no.
2. The second time building the permanent sets took a total of 2 years. Filming took place over only 12 days.
3. The artists involved in designing the sets were incredibly detailed. Each hobbit hole has decorations that tell an entire story about the family that lives there. In one case, an artist saw a clothesline outside a house and realized that in real life, someone walking back and forth to the line would wear down a path. So they sent someone to walk around the clothesline every day.
4. Ian Holm (Bilbo Baggins) never actually filmed in Hobbiton (including attending his own birthday party!). All the scenes with Bilbo were shot with doubles or later on the film sets in Wellington to be added in later.
5. All the plants and gardens in Hobbiton are real and maintained by a permanent team of gardeners. One of the only exceptions is the oak tree on top of Bag End. There was a real tree during the filming of the original trilogy, but it had died by the time the Hobbit rolled around. Peter Jackson wanted an exact replica, so one was built out of steel and fiberglass. Jackson also decided last minute that the color of the leaves was wrong, so nearly 370,000 leaves had to be re-hand painted days before filming started.
6. In 2021, a juvenile New Zealand Fur Seal made his way over 90 km up the nearby Waitoa River and took up residence in Hobbiton Lake.
7. The Hobbiton sets were only used for exterior shots, and most of the hobbit holes only go a few feet into the hills. In 2023, two fully furnished interiors were completed and added to the tour. These are just as detailed as the rest of the set, with distinct decorations to support backstories supplied by Peter Jackson himself.

Taupō

After leaving Hobbiton, we continued south to Taupō, on the banks of New Zealand's largest lake. This lies in the caldera of the Taupō supervolcano and has lots of fun geothermal activity. We didn't have long to spend in Taupō, but we did do a quick hike around Craters of the Moon, part of the largest geothermal field in New Zealand. It's covered in craters made by geothermal eruptions, steam vents, and bubbling mud pools. We hit it pretty early and the morning sun refracting through the steam made it pretty spectacular!

Speaking of geologic activity, I also happened to experience my first New Zealand earthquake! It was just a little shake while I was lying in bed after Taylor had gone to sleep. I honestly assumed I had imagined it, but looked it up and sure enough! A little 2.66 quake about 6 km away.

We made a quick stop at Huka Falls, a series of waterfalls as the Waikato River flows towards Lake Taupō, then we were back on the road! Also of note, we drove past Mount Ngauruhoe just south of Lake Taupō, which was used as the exterior of Mount Doom! Unfortunately, the clouds were a little low that day.

Wellington

We arrived in the capital city of Wellington in the pouring rain. The plan was to stay overnight in Wellington, then head across the Cook Strait to the South Island on the Bluebridge Ferry. We were a little worried, because the ferry had been cancelled for the last few days due to a nasty storm sitting over us. Because of the way the wind and ocean currents funnel through the strait, it's considered one of the most unpredictable and sometimes dangerous bodies of water. Luckily, the storm cleared out overnight and our sailing went ahead. We loaded Oberon up and settled in for the 3.5 hour crossing, which turned out to be smooth sailing.

On to the South Island!

Once we disembarked in the port town of Picton at the northern end of the South Island, we made our way down to Taylor's hometown of Waimate, about an 8 hour drive. To make sure we made it on time to pick up the paws, we drove this pretty much straight through, apart from a quick stop to see family in Christchurch. Lots of beautiful scenery along the way though!

Little bonus: the Māori name for New Zealand is Aotearoa, which translates to "land of the long white cloud." Overall we had shockingly great weather during our road trip, but we certainly had some moments of clouds and rain as well. Luckily, rain brings the rainbows, and I couldn't help but take some (way too many) pictures of those.

Pies!

Since our road trip was obviously not the most conducive for baking, this week's bake is once again a purchased one (though that will hopefully change for the next post). I know at least a few people reading this asked Taylor and I what we were most excited for in New Zealand and got a creepy, in-unison response: "Pies." There's not really an equivalent in the U.S. I mean, we have chicken pot pie or fruit pies, but New Zealand's savory meat pies are really their own thing. Typically, there is a short crust base with a flaky pastry or mashed potato topping, and then any number of fillings: mince (ground beef) and cheese, steak and cheese, butter chicken, cranberry and chicken, lamb, venison, just to name a few. Pies are super nice because they're so quick and easy. You can find them at bakeries and cafes, but also at many dairies (corner stores). And honestly, they're kind of like pizza - even bad ones are pretty good. And we definitely enjoyed a few on our road trip!

If you'd like to follow along our journey, you can hit the subscribe button at the top right to sign up to get notified when I manage to get a new post up. Thanks for reading!