Napier - Hobbiton - Coromandel

Time is rushing by and before we get started here, we would love to wish you a wonderful year 2007! Hopefully, you had a great party and the day after was not too bad! ;) So what did we do during the last couple of days of the last year? Well, after our great WWOOF-experience in Rotorua, we hit the road once more and off we went to Napier, a city on the East coast of the North Island known for its abundant art-deco style. In 1931 Napier was destroyed by the outbreak of a volcano and rebuilt within only two years. As this was at the height of the art-deco period, Napier is one of the cities in the world with the most buildings in that style. Even though I did not know much about art-deco before getting there, the city was very impressive and also very beautiful. The forms and colors in combination with the palm trees, the ocean, and very Mediterranean climate create a wonderful relaxing atmosphere and we loved wandering through the many streets for hours just looking, admiring, and taking pictures.

After this, we crossed over to the Bay of Plenty and, once more, dived into the world of the Lord of the Rings – we visited Hobbiton. What can I tell you?! The visit was worth every penny and we had a fantastic time exploring the region and listening to many, many inside stories. Where is Hobbiton located? You might not believe it, but in order to get to the farmland you have to follow a road called Buckland Road. It is important to know that the road has had that name for many, many years, long before the movie was made! Great coincidence, isn’t it? When the farmer who owns the land was approached to ask for permission to film on his land, his first reaction to the film company’s knocking on the door was: “Can you come back after the rugby?” (he was watching a game of rugby on TV) and his second reaction was: “You want to film Lord of the What???” Over time, he apparently grew much more passionate about the film and the story because it is due to his efforts that some remains of Hobbiton could be saved from total destruction, which makes it the only film set still existing in New Zealand.

So, what did we see? Well, first there was the whole setting, the beautiful region with the green hills, a cosy valley hidden from views, just perfect for the location of Hobbiton. And then there they were, the cute little Hobbit-holes dispersed amongst trees, hedges, walkways, and little flower gardens. You can almost imagine the Hobbits coming around a corner! Up on the hill, towering the whole little village, is Bagends, Bilbo’s and Frodo’s home. The door I am standing next to is the one where Gandalf knocked and received Bilbo's extremely friendly answer! And in David’s post you see the two of us sitting in front of Bilbo’s door, almost on the same spot where he and Gandalf smoked their pipes before Bilbo’s birthday party! Maybe you remember that in the film a tree grows on top of Bagends. Well, it is not there anymore because they actually cut down a tree far away, reassembled it on top of the house and then attached thousands and thousands of plastic leaves to its branches! Great student job for the summer apparently. ;-)

But of course there was more to see. There was the tree, which you can see in the background when Gandalf lets off his first fireworks when he first enters the town and the little kids follow him around. In David’s post you can see the picture of the party tree (which actually decided the location of Hobbiton because they needed a tree close to a lake) where Bilbo holds his last speech and then disappears. It might be a little difficult without the pictures we had on the spot to compare, but when you look at the picture of the lake, you might be able to imagine the bridge on the other side and the stables and pub to its left and the mill to its right? I could tell you tons of stories about how everything was constructed, how they had three gardeners whose only job was to look after Bilbo’s garden, how they had to fight against a drought while Hobbiton was supposed to be all green and flowers and everything, how they had to take everything down again after the filming, how they tried to hide everything that was going on from the local population while the military was constructing new roads through the farm to supply up to 800 people per day with food, water, electricity, Internet,... but that would definitely be too much for this blog. All the Tolkien lovers amongst you will have to wait for those stories until we meet again or until you get around to Hobbiton yourselves! It is definitely worth while.

And when there are no tourists there, who lives there now? Take a guess and don’t forget that we are in New Zealand! Yes, very true, they live here, about 12,000 of them and they are still very cute, aren’t they? They are also the region why only Bagends is accessible and all other Hobbit-holes had to be closed with wooden boards. The sheep just loved to live in them!

Well, after such a special experience, we headed back out into New Zealand’s beautiful nature and visited the Coromandel Peninsula in the Northern region of the North island. I guess the pictures will tell you more than any words – is was breathtakingly beautiful. We went on a short hike to Cathedral Cove and we found more beautiful views after every corner. It was amazing. Of course, I had to go for a swim and for the first time during our stay here in New Zealand the water actually proved so warm that I could stay for more than five seconds. Awesome! I love this country and the diversity of its landscape!

Of course, we should not forget what makes dear New Zealand so green, so after three days of beautiful weather (and sunburnt faces) our dear rain clouds caught up with us again. Some of you who have travelled with me before know what’s best to do in such a weather. Yes, we visited our good old friend Starbucks! We’ve actually done that quite a couple of times already, as you may imagine, and so we thought is was time for a little picture of our retreat from rain and storm. :-) Still as cosy as ever!

As we could not stay there forever, we continued our route and, after a short, wet, and disappointing detour through Northland, finally arrived at our last destination: Auckland. This meant lots of organization in order to sell dear Casper and to get ready for Thailand, a final WWOOFing experience and Christmas and New Years in New Zealand. But this will be part of a new post soon!