Day 23 & 24: Waitomo & Hobbiton

Scottie’s Story

The journey from Christchurch went smoothly, only slightly marred by a dreadful meal at the airport. Rob ordered a traditional Sunday roast lamb with roast potatoes, veg and Yorkshire pudding (without the “non-traditional” chimichurri sauce) and got steak and chips with chimichurri sauce and no veg – when the waitress put it on the table she said “steak” and when we said we’d ordered lamb, she said “oh yes that’s lamb”, then she went off to check and never came back. I ordered pizza, which left greasy puddles on my plate, so I gave up on it, however, the day got better once we got to Auckland.

We went for a wander and checked out the route to the pickup point for tomorrow’s tour. Part of our wander took us into streets that encouraged us to walk swiftly, making no eye contact and I was glad when we turned the corner into what felt like a safer street. New Zealand has lots of hilly streets and Auckland was no exception – keeps us fit though.

Our hotel is lovely and we decided that it would be rude not to try their rooftop bar which the receptionist told us about. We had cocktails there which were rather nice indeedy, then headed down to dinner, which was also good and hit the spot.

An early night for us as the alarm was set for 6:15am.

We were up bright eyed and bushy tailed for an early breakfast before heading off to pick up the coach at the Sky City bus station. Our tour guide, Nicki, was excellent and gave us a ton of information while she drove to Waitomo, then Hobbiton – from horse, cows, sheep, bird conservation and farming to volcanoes and earthquakes.

The glow worm cave was amazing. It was another venue with a no photos & no touch policy as that could disturb the glow worms and damage the surface of the cave, but that did not detract from the experience at all. After walking for a short while in the cave and seeing fossilised oysters on the rocks, stalagmites and stalactites we got into a boat that the guide propelled by using a rope to pull us along – no engine noise, just complete silence for the glow worms. And boy did they glow – they were on the ceiling of the cave, and it was like looking at tiny fairy lights – it was amazing.

The poor wee glow worms only have a life span of about 11.5 months and they survive by eating flies that come into the cave, get lost and are attracted to the light, thinking that this is the way out to daylight – ooops how wrong could they be? At some point at the end of their life, the glow worm loses the ability to eat and basically starves to death over a period of about 3 days, during which the female has to try to mate to lay eggs and so the cycle continues. Interesting fact – the female glow worms glow brighter than the males.

After the caves, it was back on the coach to Hobbiton.

At the beginning the guide asked who had read the Lord of the Rings books, seen the films and read Silmarillion – only 2 people had done all of them and Rob was one of them – well done, top of the class. I seriously let the side down having done none of the above – although I did see one, possibly two of the films, but not all of the second one.

The background to Hobbiton was really interesting, how the site was found and how it exists side by side with private farmland. The guide clearly enjoyed his job as he shared loads of facts and anecdotes with us. At one point they had to transport the set for a particular part of the film from New Zealand to Pinewood Studios due to actor availability. They also had to create a fake tree with over 300,000 silk fake leaves, which faded from one set of filming to a much later one, so volunteers and students were recruited to paint each silk leaf by hand, to the exact colour that the producer required – not a fun task. The tree was eventually built again but this time the leaves were plastic and more resistant to the elements.

I am not a Lord of the Rings fan so I wouldn’t know one Hobbit from another or have any knowledge of any of the scenes that were mentioned, but I still thought it was an incredible set up. There were lots of different Hobbit houses and we were allowed into one of them, which was jam-packed with stuff – too much to describe. The tour ended at the Hobbits’ local – the Green Dragon Inn where we enjoyed a drink of their ale. Our timing was great as the heavens opened (again) while we were indoors, so we did not get wet at all, in fact we dodged every deluge all day through sheer blind luck.

What a great day – two not to be missed tours.

Rob’s Reflections

Fly to Auckland

Everything went according to plan – made our way to the airport, dropped off the car, our flight was on time, took a shared (and so cheap) minibus to our hotel.

We were staying in a place that a friend of ours had to isolate in during Covid – if you absolutely have to be in quarantine, then this would have been a good option. Fortunately we were not confined to our room, and were able to ascend to the 20th floor bar for a cocktail before going for dinner. Too wet and windy for the open air balcony, but still a good view of the city.

Glow-worms and Hobbiton

Up early for breakfast – we were taking an organised coach trip to two attractions. It was 2.5 hours to get to the Glow-worms caves in Waitomo.

The journey went by quickly, as our coach driver was also providing a running commentary on our surroundings, spanning prehistoric super-volcanoes, cow and sheep breeds, Maori customs, geography, Moa and Haast’s eagles, bridge design and too many other subjects to count.

The glow-worm caves were first up: we walked through tunnels from ground level, seeing the first signs of their lights in the ceiling, getting an explanation of the less than 12 month life cycle of these fascinating little bugs, the history of the cave complex, and then a short journey by boat underground to see absolutely thousands of them in quiet and darkness. Absolutely beautiful, thoroughly recommend this experience.

Another hour travel, with yet more travelogue, and we were at the Hobbiton Movie Set location, where scenes for The Lord of The Rings and Hobbit trilogies were filmed. First up was some retail therapy, where I did my best for the New Zealand economy. Followed by an ice-cream – second breakfast, anyone?

Next we were led on a walking tour round the various smials (it’s a Halfling thing…) by our guide Joe. Yes, I was one of the two who held their hand up when asked who had read: The Hobbit, The Lord of The Rings, and The SiImarillion. Thank goodness he didn’t ask about Unfinished Tales, The Children of Hurin or The Fall of Numenor – I think I had given away enough of my inner geek-hood already.

He explained how the hobbit holes were built, and then in some cases removed or destroyed, and recreated twice, to produce what they have there today. They have gone to incredible lengths in the design of the area, with varying scales to assist with forced perspective filming, and almost all the vegetation and plants being real. The story of the tree above Bag End and its multiple versions and hand-painted leaves shows the attention to detail Peter Jackson insisted on to produce the quality of film he wanted. And all for a set that some actors only appeared on for a minute in the final films. The end-to-end running of the tour was a near perfect exercise in keeping you far enough away from the preceding and following groups to make it feel like yours was the only one there, spoiled only by a small child ahead of us who clearly wasn’t getting the same enjoyment out of it as me. For them, it wasn’t fun any more!

After a walkthrough of a full hobbit home, with furniture and objects you could touch, this all ended with a visit to The Green Dragon Inn, and a drink. Although The Prancing Pony was the site of Merry’s famous quote to Pippin, my inner voice did say “This, my friend, is a pint!” as I sipped my ale.

It turned out that two of my fellow lacrosse officials from the tournament in Wellington were also there today, and had spotted me in the distance – didn’t know until later, but they had been on a tour less than an hour out from ours – it’s a small world. No, stop that Disney song right there…

The coach trip back to Auckland was a little quieter – maybe tiredness, maybe the beer – and we made our way back to the hotel. No 20th floor cocktail, just a repeat of the previous evening’s meal, and then to bed…