"Do you Remember the Shire, Mr. Frodo?"

Hi Blog! On November 23, 2015, we stopped at Hobbiton on our way to the Coromandel Peninsula. After purchasing our tickets, we boarded a tour bus with 40 other Lord of the Rings fans. After a short drive through the rolling New Zealand countryside, we were let off just outside The Shire. Here Dave examines a map with a layout of the town.

As you walk up a short path, you begin to see the large green valley where The Shire is located. When Peter Jackson began to look for suitable locations for The Lord of the Rings film series he first saw the Alexander Farm during an aerial search in 1998 and concluded that the area was "like a slice of ancient England". Set Decorator Alan Lee commented that the location's hills "looked as though Hobbits had already begun excavations". Part of the site has a lake with a long arm that could double as a river.

While the area was open for tours prior to The Hobbit Movies, much of the original Lord of the Rings set had deteriorated since it was made with paper machette and chicken wire. In 2010, the set was rebuilt in a more permanent fashion for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," filming for which began in 2011. The Alexanders wanted the structure to stand up to the elements so they could continue to conduct tours. Here is our first look at a newly reconstructed hobbit hole.

There are facades for 37 hobbit holes and associated gardens and hedges, a mill and double arch bridge. Thatch on the pub and mill roofs is made from rushes growing on the property. Not all hobbit holes are the same size. Some are small to make the human visitors appear large.

Other homes are large to make human actors appear to be hobbit-sized.

There is nothing inside the houses. All of the interior shots were filmed in studio. However, the outside of each home is extensively decorated to appear as if it is currently being used.

The lanes are well kept and well marked so that you don't get lost going from Bree to Underhill. This is the exact path that Gandalf used as he entered The Shire.

Here is how The Shire looked in the movie.

Everyone had to stop at Bag End and take a photo of Bilbo's house.

We also enjoyed our chance to walk around the party field.

Right next door to the party field is Samwise Gamgee's house.

Our final destination is the Green Dragon pub just across the Brandywine River. Which really isn't a river, but just a small arm of the lake.

We traveled across the bridge just like Gandalf and Frodo.

Only our cart was filled with beer!

The Green Dragon interior movie scenes were shot in studios in Wellington. When the sets were dismantled, the interior set pieces were brought to Hobbiton and reconstructed inside The Green Dragon Inn. The folks at the Green Dragon stand ready to serve you only the finest Hobbit fare as well as a fresh pint from Southfarthing.

We really enjoyed our tour.  Because Hobbiton is one of the most popular tourist attractions in New Zealand, there are lots of folks being led through the town. The tour operators try to keep the tours spaced out, but a couple times we had to wait for another group to leave before we could proceed. We didn't mind waiting. It gave us more time to take photos and ask our tour guide lots of questions. In fact, we took so many photos, we couldn't fit them all in this blog. So, if you want to see more photos from Hobbiton, just click on the link to our Flickr page.

After leaving Hobbiton, we drove over to the Coromandel Peninsula. It was an amazing drive. For more on that adventure, check out the next blog entry.

Tramping the Routeburn Track

On November 19, 2015, we set out to tramp the Routeburn Track.  Some of the descriptions of the track in this blog entry are taken from Wikipedia, but the information is useful and it's hard to improve on Wikipedia sometimes.

The Routeburn Track is a world-renowned tramping track, about 20 miles in length, located north of Queenstown near the town of Glenorchy in the South Island of New Zealand. It was named one of the top eleven trails in the world by the National Geographic Adventure Magazine in May 2005.  The track is usually completed by starting on the Queenstown side of the Southern Alps, at the northern end of Lake Wakatipu, and finishing on the Te Anau side, at the Divide, a few miles from the Homer Tunnel to Milford Sound.  The New Zealand Department of Conservation classifies this track as a Great Walk and maintains four huts along the track: Routeburn Flats Hut, Routeburn Falls Hut, Mackenzie Hut, and Howden Hut; in addition there is an emergency shelter at Harris Saddle. The track overlaps two National Parks; the Mount Aspiring National Park and Fiordland National Parks with the border and highest point being the Harris Saddle.

As it is a relatively short track, much of the Routeburn Track is easily accessible to day hikers, and local guiding companies offer many day hike options on the Track.

Our guide and driver, Steve, picked us up and drove us in the early morning mists along the east shore of Lake Wakatipu:

After 45 minutes or so, we reached Glenorchy, where we picked up our pack lunches.  Steve noted to us that the flat area around Glenorchy, known as the Dart River Valley --

-- was used as the locations for various scenes in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy.  Most notably, the Castle of Rohan was digitally superimposed on the valley to take advantage of the striking mountains in the background.  Note the similarity between the photos above and below:

Leaving the Dart River Valley, we entered the forest and found the trailhead for the Routeburn Track. Our guide Steve is in the red shirt in the photo below:

Our group was the perfect size to give us a chance to socialize, while also getting to spend lots of time pumping Steve with questions about the Track and the region through which it runs.  Steve was very knowledgeable about the ecology of the region and spent much time explaining it to us.

Steve related to us the history of the Routeburn Track.  He noted that the name is taken from the river it follows:  the Routeburn, which is of Scottish origin and literally means "Route River," being the river along which the historic route over the mountains was found.  The following is taken from the website of our guide company.

The first human traffic in the Routeburn area (around 1500AD) is believed to have been local Maori on the pursuit of their precious Pounamu (New Zealand Greenstone or Jade). The Routeburn itself didn't contain large quantities of Greenstone, but was used by Maori as a passage between two of their main sources, the Dart Valley and the Arahura River on the West Coast.

David McKellar and George Gunn were the first Europeans to map the area whilst searching for grazing land in 1861. Gold was discovered and so the government investigated establishing a port on the West Coast and a track up the Routeburn Valley over the Harris Saddle to the Hollyford Valley with the intention of transporting gold overseas. Work was started on the track but abandoned in 1870. However the Routeburn did become the link between those families who had settled in the Hollyford Valley and the Wakatipu, which was a thriving commercial centre.

The first sightseers from Queenstown up the Routeburn Valley were in the 1880s. The NZ Government Department of Tourism was set up in the early 1900s, and work on the Routeburn Track restarted. In 1912 a direct route from the saddle to Lake Howden was investigated, which led to the discovery of Lake Mackenzie. Construction of the track began, but tools were downed with the outbreak of World War 1 and this section was not completed until the late 1930s.

This area gets much less rain than the Milford Sound, and the forests are very different, especially on the eastern side of the saddle, which due to less rainfall is predominantly made up of New Zealand red beech and mountain beech, with relatively few ferns.

Starting at Routeburn Road end, the track crosses a suspension bridge and starts as a gentle sidle up the true left hand side of the Routeburn:

The well graded track crosses Sugarloaf Stream...

...and the Bridal Veil Waterfall and leads to a steeper climb that goes above the gorge to Forge Flat, the site of an early blacksmith camp.

The valley opens up soon after this point, re-crosses the Routeburn and heads towards the Routeburn Flats.

Leaving the Routeburn Flats, the track climbs steadily towards the Routeburn Falls Hut, passing Eagle Bluff and Emily Creek...

...to the site of a major rockslide that occurred in 1987. The slide cleared the beech forest from around the track, affording views back down the Routeburn as well as up the Routeburn (north branch) towards Mt. Somnus and Mt. Momus.

Eventually, after a 6-mile hike, we reached Routeburn Falls:

From the Falls, we had a spectacular view down the Routeburn Valley from whence we had come:

The company guiding our hike, Ultimate Hikes New Zealand, built and manages a lodge beside the publicly maintained Routeburn Falls Hut.  The lodge is well appointed, sunny and warm, and we enjoyed our bag lunches with some warm coffee and tea in the open lounge:

Another 6 mile hike back, and we returned the way we had come to the trailhead near the head of the Dart River Valley.  We spent the van ride back to Queenstown remembering and raving about the sights we had seen this glorious day.

Day Trip to Milford Sound

Hi Blog! During our stay in Queenstown, we really wanted to visit Milford Sound. It is about a four hour drive, so we decided to take a bus tour. We did a little internet research and decided to go with Kiwi Discovery. On Wednesday, November 18, 2015, we woke up early in order to have breakfast before meeting the bus at 6:30 a.m. Here we are bundled up against the cold. The bus heater was not working! I guess we should have done better research!

The chill didn't diminish our excitement as we left Queenstown, traveled down Lake Wakatipu, over to Te Anau and then up into Fiordland National Park. We were soon surrounded by the towering peaks of the Southern Alps. The bus made a couple photo stops and Dave had to hold Kathy back from running out into the alpine meadows singing "The Hills Are Alive....."

Milford Sound is considered one of New Zealand's top tourist destinations. We expected it to be a little "touristy." What we found was a quiet little harbour surrounded by incredible scenic beauty. The Kiwi Discovery tour boat is smaller than the others, but it is faster. It's lower draft allows the captain to maneuver the boat right into the waterfalls. By now our feet had thawed and we were feeling better about choosing to travel with Kiwi Discovery. In the background is the distinctive shape of Mitre Peak, named after the mitre headwear of Christian bishops.

As we pulled away from the harbor, we began to see a number of the famous waterfalls. Named after the wife of Sir George Bowen, one of New Zealand's early governors, Lady Bowen Falls is one of only two permanent waterfalls dropping 160 meters from a high valley in the Darren Mountain Range.

Most of the walls of Milford Sound are vertical. Seal Rock is a haven for the New Zealand Fur Seal. These seals inhabit Milford Sound all year round. Hunted almost to extinction in the early 1800's when their fur was sought after by the fashion industry. The seals have made a great comeback. However, they are totally uninterested in posing for tourist photos.

As we approached Fairy Falls we watched the water fall directly into the fiord. The captain brought the boat right under the falls.

The mist created by the falling water made a great rainbow.

Just past the falls, our captain found some penguins hopping over some rocks. They are hard to see as they blend in, so we added a couple red arrows to point them out.

"For thousands of feet upwards the eye looks upon straight cut rocky frontages, not worn smooth by time, or by wind or water, but as sharply defined and as fresh looking in all respects as if riven asunder but yesterday by the stupendous wedges of Titanic Masons." James Hingston 1883. Not sure we could have described it any better. If you look closely that red dot in the center of the photo is a really big boat!

As we leave the fiord, it is easy to see why many of the early explorers just passed by the entrance. From our vantage point in the Tasman Sea, it looks like a dead end.

On the way out to the Tasman Sea, we traveled up the left side of the fiord. We returned by hugging the opposite side. We saw several more waterfalls and secret coves. If you would like to see more pictures from Milford Sound, click on the link to our Flickr Album. The bus trip back to Queenstown was much warmer. We never tired of looking at the amazing countryside.

If you get a chance to visit New Zealand, make sure you put Milford Sound on your list of must sees. After spending the whole day traveling, we looked forward to a good walk the next day. Stay tuned.

Getting to Know Queenstown and Ben Lomond

On November 16, 2015, after spending a wonderful weekend with Lizzy, Kenny, Beau and Keegan, and recovering from our long flight from the States, we caught a flight down to Queenstown on the South Island, the renowned jumping-off community for all things Southern Alps and some of the most famous hiking tracks in the world.

The city of Queenstown is smaller and friendlier than we expected.  It is oriented to outdoors activities and tourists.  Situated picturesquely on a bay of Lake Wakatipu, it is overshadowed by mighty Ben Lomond, a mountain rising to 5,735 feet above sea level:

As we were walking around the harbor, we stumbled on a long stone wall that bore a stonecut inscription - a poem about this region by a local poet:

Here is the full poem:

Waipounamu (Wall Poem)

Hoisting history on his back like a sugar-sack,

the swagger strides along greenstone trails.

All night the crib creeks are humming home,

and drowned towns float in their canvas shrouds.

They are just the ghosts of their original selves,

an emotional investment looted by snow-melt for

schemes to answer the Question of Illumination.

To tap this yearning for a golden age,

singing shepherds held wisps of tussock

which curled like lighted Chinese joss-sticks

on the fan-tan tables of sly-grog dens,

frozen in that glacier known as the past.

In the forgotten graveyards, hair grows into grass,

while wind sifts the sweet vernal over and over,

like diggers letting gold dust pour through their fingers.

The Kingston Flyer is chuffing

on the Great Northern Railway to Wakatipu.

John Turnbull Thompson cut the runholders loose

with a panoramic survey and the confidence of a faithhealer

in the middle of Queen Victoria's Royal Century,

when the boom-time harvest of Celtic place-names

seeded Central like a nouveau-Hibernian dialect

from Balclutha to Gimmerburn to Glendhu Bay.

Winter arrives on time in a glitzblitz of powdery snow.

The hoar-frost is a Quarztopolis of ice crystals,

turning weeping willows into frozen chandeliers.

Some strung the coils of Number Eight wire into fences

as trail bikes took to the State Highway with a roar

and the rainshower passed like a plume

over small towns that are hardly seen for hills.

Tarns prickle with bubbles from upland soakage

at the start of Wakatipu on Mounts Humboldt and Forbes,

Pasture stands four-square

to the intersection of Lakes Hawea and Wanaka, from where

Nat Chalmers shot the gorge in a flax raft with his guides

after descending Mount Difficulty in flax sandals,

the first Pakeha to see Lake Wakatipu, for which he paid

Reko and Kaikoura a three-legged pot - Te Kohoa!

Vipers Bugloss is the honeyed heart of the hive

and verandah shadows are dark as delphiniums.

The four-fold path of the farmer leads to hot and cold taps,

the meat-safe's a muslin bag, but the kerosene lamp's gone

the way of Aunt Daisy's and Uncle Scrim's voices on the wireless

or goals from The Boot and Pine-Tree when Rugby took a capital.

Braids of rivers run dreadlock plaits from a taniwha's

stone head, so his blind eyes spurt waterfalls

and his chest is the sucking valley of a mudslide,

when swollen rivers heave against mountain flanks

and sinkholes laden with silt roar Old Man Flood's here!

He'd ride the whaleboat Molyneux from its tributaries

to the sea, or disgorge the Matau of its spears and hooks,

if they hadn't drained the hydro-electricity, way back.

Rivers rule our lives, gurgling, puddling, dripping,

working the lake country round like greenstone,

turning out a tiki of interlocking curves flowing

into Waipounamu, which breathes its green glow,

because the lake environs are a home territory

of purple grape froth trickling a ripe roses scent

and beetroot palate into our salad day memories.

Views of the lake in its many moods: sometimes quiescent,

like a windowpane stippled with rain, behind which

cucumber leafage and swollen twigs revolve, and you

can imagine fridgefuls of rare home-brews,

or spiced-plum brandy, tots doled out to travellers;

sometimes waves snapping fierce enough to whip out

all the tent-pegs in Canvastown, with a wind able

to upturn a wedding marquee's trestle tables tomorrow.

Days of wooden coach wheels bumping out of the Ida Valley

on the Old Dunstan Road in journeys of the pioneers.

Days releasing meteorological balloons into a delicate apricot sky

in this landscape we invent, as it invents us —

from rock flake and springwater, from a skiff of froth

tumbling over a weir into the afterglow of the Aurora.

We stayed in a bed and breakfast on Queenstown Hill above the city.  From our neighborhood, we had a grand view of The Remarkables, a dramatic range of mountains that featured in some scenes of the Lord of the Rings movies:

After a good night's sleep and a hearty breakfast at one of Queenstown's quaint cafes, we rode the gondola up from the heart of the city to Bob's Peak, which is the popular name for Cemetery Hill, a smaller peak on the flank of Ben Lomond.  Here is a view of Bob's Peak and the gondola center from below in Queenstown Harbor:

It didn't take long for us to rise high above the city and lake as we rode the gondola:

Here is a view of the city and lake, with The Remarkables in the background, from the top of the gondola on Bob's Peak:

After looking about, we continued up the Ben Lomond Track toward the big mountain itself:

Our lunch stop came with a spectacular view!

Finally, we reached the saddle between Ben Lomond (in the background below) and an adjoining peak.  Kathy was inspired by the view, and she shows it in the photo below:

Having quenched our thirst for panoramic views, we hiked back down to the top of Bob's Peak, and indulged ourselves in a little luge ride before riding the gondola back down into Queenstown:

This was an invigorating hike and gave us a clue what spectacular scenery we were going to see during the coming week!

Homeless in New Zealand

Hi Blog!

Happy New Year! Can't believe it is already 2016. We know it has been months since our last blog. You probably thought we fell off the face of the Earth. On the contrary, we just went to the other side of the planet.  You see, back in November, we had to put our RV in for service. The estimated time for the repair work was 8 weeks!!! This would mean we would be "homeless" for over two months. What could we do to fill up the time - go visit family!

After we arranged a two month vacation for Flip and Baxter at a local pet sitter's house, it was time to start our 'round the world adventure. Leaving Phoenix on November 11, 2015, we made a quick stop in San Francisco where we strolled across the Golden Gate bridge.

Next stop:  Mairangi Bay, Auckland, New Zealand to visit Dave's sister, Lizzy, her husband, Kenny, and their two boys - Beau and Keegan. Kathy's birthday is in November, and Lizzy and Kenny went all-out to make sure the occasion was fun and festive! 

Our nephew Beau's 21st birthday was also in November. Earlier this year, Beau did a semester at San Diego State University with a number of Aussies. All of Beau's Aussie mates decided to come to Auckland to help Beau celebrate. Here are the boys getting ready to paint the town!

Folks in New Zealand don't celebrate Thanksgiving. However, Lizzy wanted her kids to know about American holidays. Subway is one of the few places to get turkey in New Zealand. We introduced Beau's Aussie mates to a non-traditional Kiwi Thanksgiving Dinner of Subway turkey sandwiches!

After devouring our turkey sandwiches, we went around the room saying what we were most thankful for. Dave raised his glass. God Bless us everyone!

While near Auckland, we took the opportunity to visit with Bo Chen, a friend of Matt and Weina's who is working on his doctorate at the University of Auckland. We drove down from Mairangi Bay to take the ferry from Devonport. Here we are approaching Auckland harbour.

We met Bo during our first visit to China. He worked in the English Department with Matt and Weina. We saw him again when we returned to China for Matt and Weina's wedding. Bo served as the MC for their wedding. We had a great time catching up and learning more about his studies.

The Christmas season also starts early in New Zealand. While they don't have Thanksgiving or Black Friday, November 25th (one month before) starts the holiday season. All the radio stations start playing Christmas music, houses are decorated and all the small towns have their Christmas parades. We just so happened to be in Mairangi Bay in time to catch a little Kiwi Christmas spirit.

The crowd really got fired up when the Froggy Christmas Band came marching by. However, the highlight of any Christmas Parade is a visit from the old man himself!

We were a little disappointed that Santa wasn't in shorts!

Lizzy and her family made us feel at home during our time in New Zealand.  While they had to work during the week, we occupied ourselves with short trips around other parts of the country.  Stay tuned for our next blog entries on some of the places we visited in Aotearoa ("the land of the long white cloud").