| New Zealand North Island: Aukland |
| on to Rotorua ...or |
| We flew business class on the Airline to Middle Earth using frequent flyer points on our trip to New Zealand. It was a great start to an equally great trip! The Maori word for New Zealand is Aotea. We arrived in Aukland, Aotea at 11:30 at night and drove |
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| ourselves to our hotel. The next day we wandered a bit downtown until we boarded a ferry to Rangitoto Island early in the afternoon. On the way to the island we were treated to spectacular views of the city from the harbour (pic left). Rangitoto is, in fact, a volcano (pic below). We had |
| just under 3 hours to climb to the top and back. We walked through lava fields (pic below left) and made a side trip to some |
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| small lava tubes along the way (pics below middle & below right). They were very small (certainly nothing compared to Undara), but it was fun to be able to explore them unescorted and with no fear of poisonous animals being in there! At the top we were |
| treated to expansive views of the harbour and city (pic right). Back in the city we began to plan the rest of our adventures for the coming weeks. We decided that the number of mountain summit hikes we had planned probably needed to be reconsidered... Rangitoto was one of the smaller peaks and it was a challenge in the ozone-depleted summer heat! |
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| North Island: Hamilton |
| The next morning we were headed for Rotorua. However, because New Zealand is so much smaller than Australia, we had plenty of time to explore some of the attractions in between the two. Hamilton was our first stop of the day. They are most famous for their botanic gardens, so this is where we stopped. They have a fascinating section of themed gardens. Some of the themes inlcuded a Japanede meditation garden pic top left), a Chinese garden (pic middle left), and an English garden (pic bottom left). But the piece de resistance had to be the Italian Rennaissance garden (pics below right). |
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| North Island: Matamata (home of Hobbiton) |
| lies the remains of the New Line Cinemas set for the Lord of the Rings' Hobbiton. It was chosen because of a large symmetrical oak tree located conveniently beside a small lake (pic right) - it became the party tree. I originally went for Frank, but it was actually a lot of fun to see what happened where and hear anecdotes about the filming. For example, everyone in |
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| Our next stop of the day made our geek factor climb by exponential factors. We went on a tour of Hobbiton. Out in the middle of a sheep farmer's field in a secret location |
| town had to sign confidentiality agreements if they were in any way involved with the movie. It has since come out that Peter Jackson rented the house next door to the farm owner for over 8 months before the farmer knew, and our tour guide just found out that her son's best friend from school was actually Elijah Wood's body double at Matamata (for anything you didn't see Frodo's face for). Here are a few of our geek shots. They first two are shots of the general area with the remains of the hobbit holes (pics below). They are not allowed to restore the holes to how they looked during filming, but are allowed to keep what is there intact. Only Bag End is anything more than a false front. |
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| It actually has enough space for someone to walk into it. The rest of the filming inside Bag End was done on a set in Wellington. The other shots are of Frank & I in the doorway to Bag End, and a picture of the party tree through the doorway of Bag End. |
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| Frank & Lisa's Amazing Aotea/Kiwi/NZ Adventures |
| Northern Territory: Red Centre , 2 / Top End , 2 NSW & ACT: Hunter Valley / Sydney / Canberra , 2 Queensland Coast: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 South Australia: Barossa Valley / Kangaroo Island / McLaren Vale & Coonawarra Victoria: Great Ocean Road , 2 , 3 / Melbourne New Zealand (North Island): Aukland / Rotorua / Tongariro / Wellington (South Island): Nelson / Westland / Queenstown / Milford / Dunedin / Mt Cook / Christchurch |