An Adventure in the Shire

March 1, 2020February 21, 2020 / Maria / Leave a comment

As you might have guessed, I’m a bit of a Lord of the Rings fan. I read the books for the first time when I was 10 years old and before we went on the trip, I re-read the series and re-watched all the movies. Growing up my friends and I were totally obsessed with the Fellowship of the Ring movie, which came out when I was 11. A bit odd for a group of girls maybe, but we found a copy of the script on the internet somewhere and used to act it out as we watched it. The movies are 100% what inspired me to want to visit New Zealand and it was so exciting to finally travel around the islands after so many years of dreaming of going there.

When we first started planning the trip, I figured the most time we’d be able to get away from work would be 3 weeks. I hate not having enough time to do a place justice and after a bit of research I had to admit that visiting both islands in 3 weeks would be a bit too ambitious. The South Island was the island that was really calling to me as an avid adventurer and hiker, but I couldn’t bear to not visit the North Island and see Peter Jackson’s Hobbiton set. I had to make it happen, so I revisited all my ideas and somehow we were able to make it work that we could both skip town for 5 weeks to explore New Zealand.

It felt fitting to visit Hobbiton towards the end of the trip. We had a beautiful day for it and it really had a feeling of closing out the trip. We still had a few activities left, but after Hobbiton I felt that I could leave feeling happy and accomplished. I’m sure there’s some people that look at the Hobbiton tour and think, “nah, that’s too kitschy and expensive, I won’t bother,” while I was like, “only $30 more for the Hobbit feast? We must do that!”

It was about an hour drive out of Rotorua and we had a 10am tour booked. They run the tours like a smooth sailing ship and we departed promptly on a bus that took us into the heart of the Alexander Farm in Matamata. Our guide took us on a tour to all the little hobbit holes and Bag End, before finishing in the village with a pint at The Green Dragon (okay, it wasn’t pint sized, but it was still craft Southfarthing beer!). He shared all kinds of interesting tidbits of information with us, some of which I already knew and lots of which I didn’t, before we settled down for a feast fit for a Hobbit.

Apparently Peter Jackson scouted the countryside for the perfect place to build the Shire. He had up to 10 different locations he was considering before ultimately deciding on its current location on a small piece of the Alexander Family’s large farm. He took a helicopter tour of the farm to scout out locations and it was the party tree that’s described in the book that ultimately drew him to that location. It was mostly swamp at the time, so he requested some funding from the government to get his project started. They turned him down, but sent him a division of the New Zealand army to help him bring his vision to life.

Th original set was sadly demolished after the Lord of the Rings movies, but they had to be reconstructed again for the Hobbit, so this time Peter made it a permanent enterprise. They currently employ 7 full time gardeners to maintain the set and you couldn’t help but marvel at all the vegetation and flowers and Peter Jackson’s almost fanatic attention to detail. Everything you see on the set is completely real with the exception of the tree growing on top of Bag End, which is 100% fake, but had every single leaf hand painted.

It really was a dream to get to explore around the set and see a beloved world from your childhood completely brought to life. I do wish the group sizes were a bit smaller – it’s a lot of people per tour and it gets a bit overwhelming. We ran off a few times to take some pictures; I understand they can’t have hundreds of tourists running around the set, but there’s so many little details I felt I needed a bit more time to explore them all. Although truth be told, I can’t imagine ever having enough time to hang out there. After dinner we snuck back to the lake to admire the scenery and almost got left behind (we didn’t realize our tour group would be leaving from a different exit and were waiting for them to make an appearance).

Admittedly, the party tree was a bit of a highlight for me too. Before I’d learned of the significance of the party tree to Peter Jackson as well, I’d been looking around the set trying to find it. It’s centered in the middle of the field, with coloured flags hanging from it and Sam Gamgee’s house just around the corner. We were also super impressed with the commitment to the village and the craft beer they brew just to sell in the Green Dragon. The only thing missing were little hobbits getting into mischief! If you ever go to New Zealand, don’t skip Hobbiton, trust me, it is so worth it!!

Rotorua’s Geothermal Wonders

February 26, 2020February 21, 2020 / Maria / 1 Comment

After hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, we finally took some time to chill. We’d already burned up one of our days in Taupo white water rafting and we decided to explore all around the area on our way from Taupo to Rotorua. There are so many geothermal parks and wonders in the area, and none of it’s cheap, so it’s hard to know where to spend your time and money. A friend recommended Waimangu Volcanic Valley and we decided to just go with it and ended up having a great time!

Waimangu Valley is the world’s youngest geothermal system and one of few (maybe the only?) whose date of birth is actually known. Mt Tarawera and Lake Rotomahana erupted on June 10, 1886, destroying all life within a 6km radius and birthing a new geothermal system in the valley. The valley has gone through many transformations since then – it was once home to the world’s largest geyser – but is now better known for its frying pan and terrace features. Its also ecologically important because it’s one of few places where you can see how flora and fauna have re-established in the area.

For a tourist, it’s basically a big valley with a walk running through it to all kinds of interesting geothermal features. The frying pan is the largest hot water spring in the world and runs a temperature of around 45 degrees. But my personal favourite was the inferno crater, which is a brilliantly blue hot pool almost 100 degrees in temperature. It was cool to see the hot rivers and springs flowing throughout the valley and the interesting terraces and formations that have been created from the mineral deposits in the river. We spent about 3 hours wondering around exploring the area.

It was a hot day, so I wasn’t super tempted by all the hot springs in the area, but still wanted to visit at least one, so we decided on Kerosene Creek, which is a free, local hot spring. Word has definitely gotten around about the hot spring, but nothing compared to how busy they get in BC. There were quite a few people hanging out in the hot river and pool, but it was big enough that there was enough space to spread out. It has a nice little water fall before the biggest pool that you can soak your shoulders under.

After that we drove the rest of the way to Rotorua to check into our hotel for the next few days. There was a street festival on at the same time, so we dropped over to the market for a delicious dinner and then did some shopping. Merino wool is super popular in New Zealand, understandably since there’s so many sheep, but it is surprisingly expensive. A lot of it is mixed with possum wool and we did some shopping around to pick some items to bring home with us.

The next day we took in some of the cultural sites. Rotorua is home to a lot of different indigenous groups and we decided to visit Te Puia to take in a local performance. You can find Maori culture all over New Zealand and it was fun to learn about some of the local history and customs. Seth learned the haka with the men and I learned a few poi skills with the women. Te Puia is home to a weaving and carving school for Maori students, so we got to see artists working and some of their beautiful artwork.

The village is also filled with its own geothermal wonders. Well… all of Rotorua is filled with geothermal wonders. You kind of get the feeling that the earth’s core is almost trying to burst through the ground in Rotorua and that the crust must be extremely thin in the region. We went to Kuirau Park and for a walk along the edge of the lake and we were constantly running into warnings of dangerous thermal zones. All of Kuirau Park is dotted with fenced off areas where the land seems to be almost burning away, Although they have set up a nice foot spa in one area of the park with hot water piped to soak your feet.

Te Puia is also home to another kiwi sanctuary and they regularly breed and release kiwi. They had 2 young kiwi when we visited and I’ve never seen them so active! They’re hoping to breed the two kiwi, but didn’t think they were going to be successful because the female really didn’t seem to like the male, which became very obvious when we entered the enclosure and the two were running around fighting something fierce (kiwi are very territorial). It’s unreal how fast they can move and we barely caught a glimpse of them! We returned later when they had calmed down and were able to watch one of them feeding.

Besides Te Puia, the rest of our time in Rotorua was dedicated to relaxing. I found a lovely little bookstore that I was thrilled to explore and we decided to treat ourselves to thai massages, followed by a soak in our hotel’s hot tub. I feel like maybe we should have visited a few more hot springs, but New Zealand was finally treating us to beautiful hot and sunny weather and we just couldn’t be bothered. Overall Rotorua is a bit on the smelly side (hello sulphur!), but it was fun to explore around for a few days.

Hiking Mount Doom

February 22, 2020February 21, 2020 / Maria / Leave a comment

I was so nervous about hiking the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. After the disaster that was Fox Glacier, I was really weary about hiking in less than ideal weather and I really wanted to enjoy the hike. The shuttles said they would be going ahead for our second attempt, but it was calling for a cloudy day with rain in the afternoon and temperatures as low as 0 degrees. I wasn’t sure if it was even worth doing the hike if we weren’t going to see any of the views, but I was incapable of walking away from a hike to Mordor.

In the end we decided to go for it and I went on the most over-prepared hike of my life. I must have been traumatized from my experience on the glacier because I packed SO MUCH extra clothing and food, it was a little out of hand. Even though I snowshoe all the time in Canada, everyone had me freaked about about the “cold” temperatures. One part of me was like, “wear two pairs of pants for the cold!” while the other part was saying, “you snowshoe in below zero temperatures all the time and you never wear two pairs of pants!” I did wear the extra pair of leggings, which was a mistake and I ended up ditching them at the first outhouse we came to, so needless to say I was desperately over-prepared.

But none of that ended up mattering because we had the most awesome hike! The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a 20km hike that goes right through the national park, crossing over Mount Ngauruhoe, past the red crater, and around Mount Tongariro back to the road. I hiked a volcano once before in Costa Rica, but this was totally unlike anything else I’ve ever done. It was super overcast when we started and we couldn’t see any of the 3 volcanoes in the park, so I wasn’t super optimistic. But the landscape is still pretty neat. We started hiking through some low shrub areas and as we got closer to Mount Ngauruhoe, the landscape started to become more barren and interspersed with volcanic rock that had been catapulted in all directions from a previous eruption.

We were really lucky and the clouds started to lift just as we were approaching our first view of Mount Ngauruhoe, also known as Mount Doom. It’s unreal because you can actually see the lava flows coming down the side of the mountain where they eventually became too viscous or cool to go any further. The volcano is still active and you do feel somewhat like you’re tempting fate by even attempting to hike through – especially so soon after the eruption at White Volcano, which occurred 2 days before we flew to New Zealand. All our friends and family told us to “have fun and maybe stay away from any active volcanoes”, to which we politely nodded and pretty much ignored since the whole center of the North Island is all active geothermal wonders.

The two islands are pretty interesting in that they’re located so close to one another and form 1 country, but geographically have nothing to do with one another. The South Island is all about mountains and plate tectonics, while the North Island is entirely volcanic. There were no shortage of warnings as you approach the volcano though. Apparently on average someone is airlifted out of the park by helicopter once a week, so it’s obviously a dangerous place. Though the risk seems to be from adverse and unpredictable weather conditions and people underestimating the difficulty of the hike (it’s 20km long!) versus any risk from volcanic activity. But the signs all warn to turn around if you’re struggling or if its so cloudy you can’t see the volcano (fortunately we could).

The trail loops around the base of the volcano to Soda Springs, the only freshwater source we saw for another 15km, before starting to climb up the side of the volcano. It’s an easy walk until that point, but then you finally start climbing, which most people hate but I was excited for. So many of the hikes we’d done had been valley hikes and I was excited to finally climb something! The views as you climb up Mount Ngauruhoe are awesome looking back at the trail you’ve come from. Eventually you branch off the volcano and hike over the ridge next to it and start down into the South Crater.

This is when the scenery really changes and I felt like I was hiking on Mars. There’s absolutely no vegetation and it’s just a straight shot across the red soil of the crater to the base of Red Crater. So you do get a respite from the climbing before starting up the side of the Red Crater to the highest point on the trail. This was probably my favourite part of the trail. Before you get to the Red Crater, you have to climb back out of the South Crater. From the South Crater ridgeline, we had an awesome view looking down into a very barren and mordor-like scene. Looking back we had a perfect view of Mount Doom, which the clouds had finally totally cleared off. Then you start hiking the Red Crater and have no idea where you should be looking because its so steep and the views are amazing on all sides.

The Red Crater was very different again. It’s hard to get an idea of the scope of the crater until you actually hike down the other side and look back at it, but it’s exactly as its name suggests, a giant red crater that’s still active and smells of sulphur with steam literally coming up out of the ground. The whole area is steaming from various vents and despite how cold it was up there, it was easy to find little hot spots.

Our timing really couldn’t have been better. We got to the top for one last view of Mount Doom before the clouds ate it up again, and then rushed over to get a look at the little alpine lakes on the other side. There’s several brilliant green lakes and giant blue lake in the distance. We added a layer and enjoyed our lunch looking down at the lakes from the top.

I can understand why they make everyone hike in the same direction on the track. it’s a steep hike down the other side of the crater on a scree slope that I would hate to have to hike up. We did some exploring around the little lakes before crossing the bottom of yet another crater to climb up to Blue Lake. This is where you get the best view looking back at Red Crater, which really puts into perspective what you just climbed. It clouded in pretty fast at Blue Lake and finally started to drizzle, so we didn’t spend much time there and started to move on as we were still only a little over halfway through the hike.

As soon as you leave Blue Lake though the landscapes change again entirely. Hiking the volcanoes and craters really felt like being in a wasteland, but as soon as we rounded the corner of the lake and started hiking down the other side, it was like coming back to Earth. I still wouldn’t exactly call the vegetation ‘lush’, but it sure felt that way after hiking across a volcanic desert. From there the last 8km are just winding back down the side of the mountain to the highway. There’s a great view of Lake Taupo and you can still see steam coming from the Te Mari Crater, which last erupted in 2012. There’s chunks of volcanic rock spewed across the landscape, which is a good reminder of the danger still associated with the park. The Te Mari Crater erupted in 2012, putting holes in one of the huts on the Tongariro Great Walk. Fortunately no one was injured, but only because the eruption took place in the middle of the night in winter. There was no prior warning, so had it been any other time of year, there almost certainly would have been fatalities.

It’s definitely a sobering reminder and it seems lucky they’ve avoided disaster in the park up until now. One of the placards by Mount Ngauruhoe told the story of a school group that was hiking the volcano in the 1970’s when it suddenly started erupting, cutting off the way back and forcing them to have to evacuate over to the Red Crater. Fortunately nothing of the sort occurred on our journey. The rain disappeared as quickly as it had started and we had an uneventful hike down to the end of the trail. We felt really accomplished when we finally reached the end and had our car waiting for us!

I’m so glad we weren’t too jaded from the glacier experience to try this hike as it ended up being one of my favourite parts of the trip! We had a lot of fun goofing around on the trail, re-enacting the Lord of the Rings and taking pictures of me pretending to me Frodo, Sam, and Gollum at various parts of the trail. It’s not a hike to underestimate, but it’s also not a hike to miss!