Who Does Bucket Lists?

Hobbiton – The Shire

It sounds so cliche anymore. But if there were one thing Bob or I ever considered as a bucket list item, it would be New Zealand. Ever since high school, we have talked about visiting. However, we never really made any move towards that dream. And when we made the decision to come, it was without so much as a plan between the two of us. Plane reservations and the first few nights accommodations (which I screwed up), and here we are.

Already 9 days into the trip, it seems to be going faster than we would have thought.Our first stop was Aukland. Over 1.5 million of the close to 4.4 million Kiwis in NZ live in Auckland. This makes me wonder how many people we’ll see for the remainder of our trip. We stayed outside the city in the home of Gillian and Paul who run their home as a B&B. Lovely people, helpful, and anxious to help us begin our NZ journey well. We had actually considered renting a Caravan and camping our way through the country, but our experience with all of our hosts has made it clear; getting to know the locals is always the more desirable.

We spent one day in Auckland. Great views of the city from the Sky Tower, but hey we’re here to see the real NZ! We did get a chance to meet up with a friend for lunch. She’s doing a semester abroad, so that was definitely a bonus.

Bay of Islands

The next few days have taken us North of Auckland to Paihia in the Bay of Islands. We spent one day doing a boat cruise. Quite a few dolphins out, which was a treat. The area is definitely sub-tropical, and while the temps are cooler here, one has to be careful with the sun. New Zealand boasts the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. People are constantly warning you about the sun. The vegetation is quite mixed from eucalyptus trees, pine trees, fern trees, native hydrangeas, and palm trees with a few banana trees thrown in.

We then headed back down to Auckland – lunch again, this time with family. We got to meet Bob’s niece Annabelle for the first time. She didn’t seem all that thrilled with meeting us (maybe it was just Bob.)

The rain caught up with us in Thames. Thought we left if behind in California. It rained so much in one day that areas that normally only flood once in a great while flooded – we almost didn’t make it out of the area.

Hobbit House

On to Matamata, close to one of the movie sets for the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. While I don’t think visiting the movie set home for the hobbits would have been Bob’s call – he did do it for me. We walked through a downpour to visit the shire. Kinda crazy, but definitely cool. The movie producer scouted the area from a helicopter. It had been a sheep and cattle farm, and I’m pretty sure farmer Alexander is quite happy with the outcome of becoming a movie set (tours every 10 minutes every day except Christmas.)

The Shire

 

From there on to Rotorua. We stayed with Faith and David. Faith is Maori and David is a Brit. Faith has quite an interesting history – her Grandfather was the first Maori Anglican Bishop for New Zealand. It was quite an effort for him to convince the church that Maori were just as capable as the caucasians to lead the church.

Rotorua has a lot to see from the perspective of Maori culture. Also quite a bit of geo-thermal activity in the area. Quite an interesting place

 

Te Puia Geyser