North Island Itinerary: Hobbiton and Waitomo Glowworms

Flying back to New Zealand from Sydney, we arrived in Auckland and had two days to explore around before the trip was over. The first day, we chose a long day driving down to the Hobbiton Movie Set and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves and then back to Auckland. It was a beautiful, sunny day for Hobbiton, and it was lambing season, so there were lots of sheep and their lambs on the green hillsides. We even saw a lamb that had just been born a few minutes prior, which the bus driver had seen on her way to pick everyone one up.

My phone battery died on the way to Waitomo, so we were left without navigation and got lost, which was not fun. We had to use the old-fashioned paper map from AA and stick to the main highway so we wouldn't lose more time. But this was my first time seeing the glowworms and they were very cool. They take you into the caves and then on a boat so your eyes can adjust to the darkness and see the thousands of glowworm larvae above and around you. Since you can't take photos down there (which is nice - frees you to actually enjoy the experience), I've only got one of the exit of the caves.

 

The recreation of Hobbiton in The Shire

 

Bilbo Baggins' house

The Hobbiton cat had the best seat in The Green Dragon Inn, next to the fire

Exiting the Waitomo Glowworm Caves

Hobbiton

We finally made it to Hobbiton. It was raining, cold, and muddy, unfortunately, but that's New Zealand. Unpredictable weather always. There were lots of hobbit hole facades and real fruit and vegetable gardens. I recognized some of my own plants there which was cool! Since we've watched the behind-the-scenes documentaries of the LOTR and Hobbit movies, there wasn't much new from the guide. We had the ginger beer (ginger ale soda) in the Green Dragon Inn and a chocolate chip cookie with lemon frosting. We would have appreciated a little more effort toward atmosphere on the tour, as listening to Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and other pop music on the bus ride to and from the set wasn't quite the movie soundtrack and experience we were expecting. They packed a lot of people into our group and the walkways aren't designed for that many people, so there was a lot of crowding (especially with us all using umbrellas). We plunked down a bit in the gift shop for some souvenirs and were on our way to Auckland.

Queenstown

It was a beautiful, sunny day in Queenstown -- finally! We went on a 10:30am lake cruise (Lake Wakatipu) which was nice and relaxing. We had good views of the town and the mountains and a nice guide. One of the big brags for the lake is that it is 99.9% pure, so he pulled up a bucket and let us all try a glass. Have to say, pretty good. You certainly couldn't do that in the U.S.!  

We went to the underwater observatory which wasn’t much – a bunch of trout, eels, and diving ducks waiting around for someone to feed them. It was included in our lake tour, so that’s the only reason we went. 

Even though the sun was beating down, we took a walk around some of the lake and checked out the botanical gardens with lots of roses in bloom. Then we got Patagonia ice cream and headed back to the hostel to relax and read in the lounge. I really enjoyed that view. Since it was discount Tuesday at the movie theatre, we saw the third Hobbit movie again, but this time in 3-D and high-frame-rate. Not much of New Zealand in that movie, unfortunately -- mostly green screen digital effects.

Glenorchy

After the day at the glacier, we drove to Glenorchy, about a 40-minute drive up the side of Lake Wakatipu. It was a nice drive along the cliffs with views of the lake, a couple islands in the lake, the mountains, and the hillsides.

The town itself was fairly small. We continued past it on our way to a couple Lord of the Rings and Hobbit locations. The first was around Paradise where Beorn's house, the land between the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood, Isengard, Amon Hen, and Lothlorien were filmed. Unfortunately, we were stopped partway through one of the forests by a creek too large for our car to be able to ford. The scenery was pretty, but I couldn't help but notice how similar it was to some of the coast of California. I think someone coming from a city or the plains would have been more startled by all of the features. It made me appreciate my experiences in California, for sure.

Paradise 1

Paradise 2

where Isengard was digitally added in LOTR

Back in Glenorchy, we parked in a lot by the lake to eat our lunch (in the car, because it was sprinkling and very windy out). I noticed a big black dog on the beach barking as it tried to get two ladies to play fetch with it. I assumed the dog was theirs and was feeling up for some socializing. We got out of the car, started throwing the stick for the dog, and struck up a conversation with them about the dog. Turns out, they were tourists and the dog actually belonged to locals and knew it could get people to play with it by visiting the beach area (a new crop of tourists every day!). Later it was joined by a golden retriever. One of the ladies was from Australia. Her friend was from the U.S., and it turned out she had a PhD so we talked about the lousy job market, and she offered advice on how to get ahead once we received our degrees. It was a very encouraging encounter -- one of those occasional travel experiences you don't seem to get as many of when you're stuck in your daily routine. We parted ways, then as we were filling up at a gas station down the main street, she ran into us again and gave us her business card so we could stay in touch.

On the way back to Queenstown, we stopped to hike at a couple other LOTR locations near Closeburn and Twelve Mile Delta: Ithilien, where Sam saw the oliphants, the place where Sam cooked the "coneys" or rabbits, and the spot where Frodo, Sam, and Gollum watched the battle between Harad men and the Rangers of Gondor. It was here that we unknowingly were bitten by bugs on the trail and had to deal with a few itchy bites on arms and legs the rest of the trip.

in the Twelve Mile Delta area 

Jobs, Parties, Movie, and Meds

Jobs

We joined the ranks of the workforce this week, having both been accepted to be notetakers for the disability center on-campus. This is nice because you get to sit through a class in your field and take notes for students who are otherwise unable to take their notes. You get to learn and get paid for it. Not too bad a deal. We had to apply for an IRD (Internal Revenue Department) number at the post office, and it was a surprisingly easy task. The form was two pages long and just required copies of our passport and student ID. The lady processed the forms, gave us a receipt, and said to expect our numbers in the mail in about a week. What won't be so simple is figuring out all the tax stuff, but we'll just have to wait until the end of their year (March 30) to deal with that.

School

There were two holiday parties, one with some of the arts college's departments and the other with a small group of postgrads. Unfortunately, the first party suffered from the typical clique problem where each department's people just sat at their own table and didn't interact or leave room for anyone else. The second party was at a vegetarian restaurant which suffered from the dinner party problem where you may or may not be seated next to interesting people, and you never get the chance to talk to anyone from the other end of the table. Perhaps because the university has a small but growing animal studies research group, we have been encountering a large proportion of people working on animal rights-related topics and bringing them up in conversation. One lady was against the concept of pets and another was a vet who believed all vets should be vegans. I'll admit, hearing these new points of view has made me think more about humans and their relationships with animals than I did before.

With the new year just around the corner, I decided to ask the head of school for a meeting to discuss some of my frustrations at the lack of communication and events for postgrads in my department and others in the arts. This was the professor I met the first week I arrived whom I knew it would be advantageous to have talked with, and I was right. I felt comfortable going to him and we had a great meeting going over my concerns and coming up with solutions. As I suspected, he already knew a lot of what I was saying was happening, but it took someone speaking up about it to put it back as a priority on his huge to-do list to revitalize the school. I'm encouraged that the next few years will see the build-up of a strong postgrad community that supports us and reflects well on the school.

Home

We saw our first movie here, The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies, which came out ahead of the U.S. release for a change. On this side of town, the movie theater is actually reasonably priced at $10 a ticket, and the theater was very nice with stadium, comfortable plush seating. The weird thing was they have assigned seats - which we didn't realize - and someone came in and made us move because we were in their seats. This system makes sense to give an incentive to buy tickets in advance online so you can get the best seats, but it was ridiculous in the huge theater to have all of us bunched up together in the middle. We moved over one after the movie started to avoid a smelly guy - it's called a buffer seat people!

At the house, we had another visit by insurance inspectors. After about half an hour of walking around and making notes, one of them showed up on the porch wearing a haz-mat suit and told us that we should stay out of the house for the next hour while they collected samples from walls and ceilings. We said we really didn't want to leave for an hour, so they compromised and worked on one side of the house at a time with a door shut. (Hopefully they don't find anything hazardous!) So now there are masking-taped-up patches all over, as well as numbers in Sharpies so they can match photos to rooms. No care taken to make the holes in inconspicuous places - I don't think this would fly in the U.S.

generic aspirin was $2.59 for 20 300mg pills

brand-name naproxen sodium (Aleve) was $14.99 for 12 275mg pills 

We bought a 32" LCD TV at a garage sale for $100 which was a really good deal. Americans just need more than 1 television, I guess. A gift of fruit mince pies was given to us, and though I tried the raisin and apple-filled treats, they are just too sweet and weird tasting for my palate. I think you have to have grown up on them. Having to buy medicine for D since his back went out, I was reminded how expensive medicine is here and how I should have brought more with and wish someone had told me how crazy the prices are for even regular stuff like pain relief. Thankfully there are generic versions of aspirin and ibuprofen, but most other medicines and anything name-brand is at least $1 or more per pill.

Although not many people decorate for Christmas, there is a website where people can put their address if they do put up lights and want others to come see them. We drove about 10 minutes to a suburb with a lot of postings and saw several really nicely decorated houses. A couple even had signs saying come on in and see more, so we stopped at one and had a nice walk around the house full of lights, trees, ornaments, and other decorations. Definitely made me sad we couldn't bring any of our decorations with!