Hobbiton, Matamata, New Zealand, February 19, 2023

 

I’m a lukewarm Lord of the Rings Fan at best, but Hobbiton - the Shire -  was absolutely beautiful! Just like the feeling of the Shire in the LOTR movies, visiting the movie set brought a tranquil escape from reality, a blissful world without worry or stress. We were there about four hours and when it was over, I wished I could stay, wished it was a real world. 

The Hobbiton movie set is located on a working family farm, the Alexander Family Farm, which is a livestock ranch with thousands of sheep and Angus beef. The area around the movie set and Matamata is stunning: green rolling hills, sheep on the steep hills,  cows grazing, their bells sounding off in the distance. The Hobbit homes are all facades, none had interior rooms other than a shallow, closet-like openings showing shelving with ‘Hobbit’ notions. A month after we were there the movie set shut down, after the summer season of 2023, and several of the hobbit homes were bulldozed and rebuilt to be actual Hobbit homes, completes with bedrooms, kitchens, dining areas. 

The day were were there was sunny, calm and bright. Three days earlier, February 16, Cyclone Gabrielle lashed the North Island, dumping heavy rain with hammering winds. We saw very little damage today, with just a few mud puddles here and there, otherwise not much evidence of the cyclone.  

The pictures say it all, my words can’t add anything . . .

Most of this is a movie set, but that is a real Monarch Butterfly.

You’re not in Utah anymore! The tour ended with a mug of cider at the Hobbit Pub, The Green Dragon, courtesy of the tour. I’m still chuckling thinking of the eight-year-olds on the tour getting buzzed on that 5% cider. It was delicious! And I didn’t get buzzed from the cider, I did from the scenery. Back in Bountiful, Davis County School District is banning books such as Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mocking Bird and Huckleberry Finn, yet in New Zealand they don’t worry a bit about kids drinking cider with a bit of a kick. Even with that, the kids in New Zealand still have much lower rates of drug abuse and violent crimes than do the youth in Bountiful Utah. I can only conclude that Utah is totally F**ked! Relax, respect and trust will help kids succeed much more than creating a world of paranoia and hiding from the truth of history, as told in great books. I truly fear for my Grandkids, much, much, much more due to the local politics than any other influences in their lives. 

Twizel, Geraldine, Christchurch New Zealand, February 18, 2023

The long drive from Queenstown to Christchurch, 482 km (300 mi), which took about six hours on the New Zealand two-lane, 55mph highways, including stops for food and stretching the legs in new towns.  But I’m not complaining, at a much slower pace you experience the landscape much more intimately than when traveling at 90 mph in an endless line of Joeys all doing the same, as is the case when driving the interstate in Utah. Kiwis are more relaxed than Americans in general, a good thing, and that translates to much more relaxed traveling when on the road. 

We drove from Queenstown to Twizel, where we stopped for lunch. Twizel is the gateway to Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. From Twizel it was back on the road for more long hours of driving, but we stopped in Geraldine, at the city cemetery of all places, to rest and stretch our legs, which strangely was one of the sweet, unexpected  highlights of of our trip. From Geraldine it was another hour to our hotel in Christchurch. Once settled in the hotel we walked the backyard nature trails through the Papanui area that evening. The next morning was a quick flight to Aukland and the North Island. 

The scenery was very Nevada-ish between Queenstown and Twizel. Dry, cheat-grass covered hills and low mountains standing above huge lakes, not that Nevada has huge lakes, but otherwise it could be the western USA. The slow, easy driving, another departure from life in the USA, made the trip relaxed and enjoyable.   

Lunch in Twizel.

Twizel playground, which could pass for any small town in Utah, except for the massive, glacier covered mountains just 20 miles off to the west.  

We didn‘t plan it, but when driving through Geraldine and ready for a break from the road, Kara spots the city cemetery so we go walking, and walking the cemetery and reading headstones was a hidden splendor.

Backyard nature trails through the Papanui area of Christchurch, it did not feel like we were in a huge city, and another unexpected gem before heading to the North Island.