Novotel Sydney Darling Square
33°52′39″ S 151°12′11″ E

Today was an exciting day – well, at least the afternoon was!

This morning we were on a mission to get our laundry done. We have been on the road for almost 3 weeks & “essential” clothing items are getting to be in very short supply! Photo below – awesome mural on our hotel.

Unfortunately our hotel does not have any guest laundry facilities & the cost of having the hotel doing our laundry for us was prohibitive – not like India! So we loaded up our backpacks with our dirty laundry & searched on Google Maps for a nearby laundromat. There was one not too far away so we headed out on our quest.

We found the laundromat on a busy neighborhood street & fortunately there also was a comfy coffee shop just a few steps away. We were able to relax a bit while our our laundry was underway. Then back to the hotel for more sorting & folding. Job done! That should hold us until we get on board the cruise ship.

Next on the agenda was to find some place for lunch. There are dozens of restaurants along the Darling Harbour promenade & we found one with a nice patio table overlooking the water. Catherine had a nice & sensible cauliflower salad while I took a ride on the wild side & had a kangaroo burger, or, as I dubbed it as “Skippy on a bun”. Tasted like hamburgers to me!

After lunch we walked all the way down to the end of the promenade which took us past the Australian National Maritime Museum that had some very cool boats parked outside!

On our way back to the hotel we had a quick visit to a Chinese Tea Exposition at the Sydney Convention Center. Catherine found a nice wall unit for our apartment that was on sale for “only” $15,000!

We did pretty good today & walked over 16 kilometers. Back home I’d be doing well to walk that distance in a month.

Tomorrow I am going to visit the maritime museum & Catherine has a water-oriented adventure of her own planned.

Cheers!

Novotel Sydney Darling Square
17 Little Pier St. Sydney
33°52′39″ S 151°12′11″ E

We were up early this morning to head to the airport in Auckland to return our rental car & then fly “back” to Sydney.

We got our rental car back to the airport in plenty of time to check in for our flight. During our time in New Zealand we drove approximately 2,500 kilometers around the North Island without any incidents. What a fantastic place to visit! (Photo below is copied from the internet – New Zealand’s north & south islands as seen from space).

Driving in NZ seemed easier that when we drove in the UK a few years ago. I think having a car with an automatic transmission helped a lot – compared to our car in the UK that had a 5-speed manual transmission.

Most of the roads we were on here were wider with only two lanes for the most part & had paved shoulders so that helped a lot too. Catherine was a lot more comfortable in the passenger seat on this trip & was able to dispose of the paper bag after just a few hours on the road.

Checking in for our flight to Sydney took a lot longer than we had planned – almost 2 hours. Several Air New Zealand flights were cancelled or delayed, the automatic kiosks were having lots of problems & as a result the lineups were horrendous. Thankfully we had lots of time before our flight so the waiting wasn’t anything more than an inconvenience for us.

We chatted with a woman in line with us who was flying home to Sydney. She had already evacuated her home twice in the past few weeks due to the bush fires and was expecting to have to do so again when she got back. It’s a disastrous situation for the country.

Farewell New Zealand!

We had a 3-hour flight to Sydney & arrived at around 1:30 in the afternoon.

Hello Australia! Traveling from one boater’s paradise to another in the same day is almost too much to handle!

They have “everything” in Australia – even modern “two holers” in Sydney’s airport’s public bathrooms!

After briefly visiting this highlight I caught up with Catherine & we took a shuttle to our hotel from the airport. Well, we thought it was our hotel. We went to the Novotel Darling Harbour but when we tried to check in to our room we were told that we were supposed to be at Novotel Darling Square – another property about 1 km away. Whoda thought that there would be two Novotel Hotels so close to each other?

We decided to walk from one hotel to the other. Some kind souls helped us find our way alongside the harbour and we were settled into our room by 3:00.

Our hotel is at the end of the harbour & there are dozens of restaurants & shops within a very short walking distance. The entire waterfront area is developed as public space for pedestrians only. We will have lots to explore over the next few days.

The city is blanketed with haze from the bush fires but there was some rain tonight so that dampened things down a bit.

There are usually fireworks on Saturday nights over the harbour but they have been cancelled out of respect for all the hardship caused by the fires.

We will stay here for the next 5 nights before we board the cruise ship so it will be nice to be in one place for a while. Lots to see & do here!

We will start off tomorrow with an exciting walking tour of the local neighborhood in search of a laundromat. Reality approaches.

Cheers!

Hobbiton Movie Set
37.8723° S, 175.6834° E

Today we went to visit Hobbiton, the movie set for the Hobbit village called The Shire in the Lord of the Rings & Hobbit movies series.

The movie set is in the middle of active farmland but cannot be seen from any roads as it is located in a couple of small, deep valleys.

This seclusion was the main reason the area was selected for the movie set.

The whole operation is very well designed to handle thousands of tourists each day. Car & tour bus parking is in a separate area & you must take a special bus to get to the actual movie set. An on site bus loaded with 30 people departs every 15 minutes & each bus has a guide who leads your group on a tour of Hobbiton.

At first we wondered why we needed a guide but it quickly became obvious that the entire site & set would be in total chaos if people were allowed to simply wander around on their own.

Our tour guide was a young woman named Jordan & she was excellent! She explained all of the history of the movie set & gave us an explanation about each of the Hobbit homes on the site.

She also had lots of interesting trivia about the set & the actors. At one point during the movie filming there were more than 400 people on the site – actors, film crew, props and maintenance people!

The picture below is Bag End, home of Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins.

The first time the Shire was created, it was never intended to last much more than the three months of filming of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The entire set was dismantled, only leaving a few stone steps & the site returned to be used as sheep grazing land.

When Peter Jackson wanted to film the Hobbit trilogy in the same location, the land owner & the movie company partners decided to build a more permanent set that would be left behind as a tourist attraction. It took two years to re-create the set that was used for only 12 days of filming! Below is the home of Samwise Gamgee, featured in the last scene of The Return of the King.

The entire set was quite charming with beautiful gardens outside each Hobbit house. But all the Hobbit Houses are in fact, facades, with the doors opening only to reveal to a retaining wall behind. It gave us a glimpse into the magic of film making.

The tour concluded at the Green Dragon Inn shown above where everyone was treated to a mug of beer or cider.

Wally’s buying!

Step up to the bar!

It was a great morning & we had lots of fun.

After the tour we were back on the road again, this time headed to Auckland for an overnight stay at a hotel near the airport.

Tomorrow we fly “back” to Sydney.

Cheers!

Nov 20 – Arthouse B&B, Matamata
37°46′19″ S 175°43′16″ E

We left the Chateau Tongariro in much the same weather as when we had arrived a couple of days before – in the pouring rain with the clouds so low that there were no mountains to be seen anywhere.

We can’t believe our luck – we had one full day in the area to see the sights & we were fortunate enough to get the only day with sunshine & mostly clear skies.

Now we were headed off to the next part of our adventures. We had a 3 hour drive through the mountains & valleys to the town of Matamata, which is just a few minute’s drive from Hobbiton.

Matamata is a busy town in the midst of a very prosperous agricultural area. The arrival of the movie production people for elements of the Lord of the Rings movies cranked up the activity in the area by several notches.

We went to the tourist information center which is modeled after a Hobbit house & then strolled through the downtown commercial area.

Matamata & Hobbiton are now among the most popular tourist areas in New Zealand, even almost 20 years after the initial release of the movies.

We stayed at a very nice B&B just outside of the town. The place was in the middle of farm country with gentle rolling hills & great views in every direction. The owners have 3 alpacas in a small field adjacent to their backyard – Cleo, Madonna and Frida – very curious animals.

Tomorrow we go to Hobbiton!

Top of the Ski Mountain
39°12′59″ S 175°33′14″ E

Get a cup of coffee & a comfy chair – this is an extended length blog entry 🙂

Today was an exciting day for us but ironically, one of the things that got us so excited today is something we came to Australia & New Zealand to avoid – SNOW! However there was lots of snow where we went today & we were very happy to see it.

Yesterday we arrived at our hotel in Whakapapa Village in the fog & pouring rain & there were no mountains to be seen anywhere. Today, especially this morning, was a completely different story! The mountains were “back” to greet us & they did not disappoint!

Whakapapa Village sits at the bases of Mount Ngauruhoe, also famous for its inspiration as Mount Doom in Lord of the Rings movies, & Mount Ruapehu – the highest mountain on New Zealand’s North Island.

We started the day by taking a short drive to the Whakapapa ski area. On the way there we got some fantastic views of Mount Ngauruhoe.

When we arrived at the base of the ski area we saw that someone had a bad experience parking their vehicle. It was a humorous sight to see but it could have just as easily been me – so I don’t want to be too smug about it.

The Whakapapa ski area is the largest downhill skiing place in New Zealand. Staff there told us that they host about 6,000 skiers per day during the peak season & that the season (June – October) has just recently come to an end.

The landscape on the mountain is interesting as it’s a volcano that is completely devoid of any trees & other plant life.

We took a gondola from the base of the ski area up to the top of the mountain – about 6,600 feet – the same elevation we were at in Ghandruk, Nepal last year but with way less effort!

There is a huge day lodge up there that offers amazing views.

We were very fortunate that there were no clouds on the mountain while we were there & we got lots of great photos.

There were also notices posted in the bathrooms for everyone to read telling you what to do if the volcano started to erupt!

Made me think of Jimmy Buffett’s song lyrics “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know where I’m a gonna go when the volcano blows!” Something to contemplate while you are sitting on the toilet….

We spent a couple of hours at the day lodge & then took the gondola back down to the parking lot.

Next on the agenda were a couple of short walks on nearby trails. One trail we took was to Tawhai Falls which we found out later was the location where in one the Lord of the Rings movies Gollum was shown fishing in the “pool” at the bottom of the falls. If I would have know that earlier I would have jumped in the pool myself!

After our short hikes we went to the Visitor Information Center to learn more about the area & see their displays. We watched a short movie about how New Zealand is trying to deal with invasive species predators such as rats & stoats (weasels) that are posing a serious threat to native wildlife – especially the Kiwi bird.

We have been in New Zealand for almost 2 weeks & we haven’t yet seen a live Kiwi. I was feeling a bit deprived until one of the presenters in the movie stated that he had been working with wildlife in this country for almost 20 years & has still not seen any live Kiwi in their natural settings.

We did see this stuffed kiwi bird at the visitor centre

and this very unique road sign!

We finished the day by walking up to a backpackers lodge that was close to our hotel. We had beer & nachos in their scenic laid back lounge complete with comfy couches and fireplace.

While we were there a staff member showed us a photo of the most recent eruption of Mount Ngauruhoe in 1977. I copied the photo below of the 1977 eruption from the internet. Thankfully the mountain giant lay sleeping while we were here.

We were pretty tired by the time we got back to our hotel – but we were just in time to watch a free movie showing of James Bond’s Skyfall in the hotel’s cinema lounge. Hard to pass up an opportunity like that so we dipped into our energy reserve tanks & settled in for a few hours more entertainment.

Popcorn anyone?