New Zealand: Journey to Middle Earth and Back Again

Jan 2, 2011

On new years day, I hopped a plane to Auckland, New Zealand to embark on a two week adventure with my younger sister, Laura. The plan was a simple but ambitious one: rent a car and drive from the top of the north island down to the bottom of the south island and then all the way back up again. The challenge was to do this in ten days (I would be in New Zealand for 14 days, but Laura would only be there for 10 further limiting our time). Anyone I spoke with who had been to New Zealand insisted that we needed at least a month to explore both islands. And while I believe this to be true, I can proudly attest that it is possible to do the impossible- we successfully traveled through or to over 15 towns and cities in New Zealand in just 10 days. We came. We saw. We conquered. Here's how we did it, and what we saw and did along the way...

I left Sydney on new years day, but I arrived in Auckland at 12:05 a.m. the following day. Laura wasn't scheduled to arrive until 7 a.m. that morning. Thus, I was forced to transform the Auckland International Airport into my hotel for the night. Not exactly ideal. My first bed for the evening was a McDonald's table. I sat my bum on a red, hard, plastic swivel chair and laid my head on my arms folded across the equally hard and plastic table. Talk about a pain in my ass. The potent aroma of fries and beef juices didn't add any pleasantness to my sleeping scenario. So I moved. I found an open row of cushioned airport seats and curled up in the fetal position to catch some Z's. Asides from waking up every ten minutes, peeking to check that security wasn't coming to escort me out of the building and that my bags were still where I had left them, I slept like a baby. Like a baby that wines and fusses all night long. I thought 7 a.m. was never going to arrive. But alas it did. And then, through the customs doors emerged my beautiful, little sister. Cue the orchestra, because I was singing "Hallelujah! Hallelujah!" Hallelujah that my sister arrived safely and on time, and hallelujah that we could now get this adventure-party started.

After embracing (it had been four months since we last saw one another), we went and picked up our rental car. The car was a Toyata Vitz. A pink-ish colored Vitz, a combination of pink and silver but it certainly wasn't pink nor silver. I have never, ever seen a car this color. It was an odd color. It was an ugly color (for a car). And that is precisely why I loved it. We loved that quirky, pink-mobile as if it was our very own. Fortunately, driving Madame Vitz proved to be less difficult that I had anticipated. The challenge, of course, was having to drive on the opposite side of the road. I hadn't driven a car in four months, and now my first time behind the steering wheel I had to consciously think about staying on the left side of the road. I admit I was a little nervous about this, especially about the turning part, but after a few minutes I got the hang of the transition and quickly felt at ease behind the wheel. That's not to say that I didn't have one or two "oh $h!t" moments when my mind would go into autopilot and I'd find myself turning into the right lane. But like I said, for the most part driving was easy, breezy. I can proudly report that we and Madame Vitz made it through the trip a-okay without a scratch on any of our bodies. What a relief.

Is it pink? Is it silver? No, it's Madame Vitz!

Our first destination was Matamata where we were scheduled to go on the Hobbiton Tour. Now, some of you may be scratching your head wondering what on earth a Hobbiton tour is, and many others of you are probably brewing with excitement (or jealously perhaps) wishing you could go on the tour too. The Hobbiton Tour is a tour of the Hobbiton movie set used in the Lord of The Rings (LOTR) movies (Hobbiton being the name of the place where Hobbits live). If you don't know what the LOTR or Hobbits are then you have been living under a rock, are beyond hope, and should just stop reading this. But if you are anything like my sister then you are a humongous LOTR fan who has been dreaming her entire life of visiting New Zealand just so she could see where LOTR was filmed. I'm talking about a HUGE fan. Laura's room has wall to wall posters of LOTR. She has a life size cardboard cut-out of Legolas. She is a LOTR junkie and isn't ashamed to admit it. So our going on the Hobbiton Tour was practically a little girl's greatest dream come true! I love LOTR too, just not to the extreme level of my sister, so I was also stoked to go on the tour.

At Hobbiton. Whoot whoot!

For the tour, we were picked up in a Hobbiton Movie Set Tour bus. Our tour guide was Louise (it was almost as if my mother was there with us too!), a nice but nerdy LOTR devotee. She spit out fun facts and figures as we drove through the hilly, green farmland of Matamata to the Hobbiton movie set. Then we had to sign a confidentiality form because, drum roll please...they were currently revamping the Hobbiton set for Peter Jackson's new flick, The Hobbit. Cool, eh? We got a sneak peak at what's to come. But Mr. Jackson doesn't want the rest of the world to know this. Sorry. You'll just have to a) fly to New Zealand and see it for yourself, or b) wait until the movie comes out. What I can say is that the Hobbiton movie set tour was awesome. The land of Hobbiton was super cool: the Hobbit homes were adorable, the land was lush and green, and the sky was perfectly blue. All that was missing was Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, and Gandolf the Great.

Laura with the good-looking Gollum

Our bus. Riding in style. 

After the tour, we drove two hours to Waitomo, a small town known for its phenomenal glowworm caves. We arrived around late afternoon and settled into our hostel, YHA Waitomo. I won't be telling you the name of each hostel we stayed in every night, but I am telling you this one because it was the best hostel I have ever stayed in (notice that I didn't say cleanest or most modern). I say this because of two reasons: 1) it had a trampoline (anyone who knows me knows that I love trampolines), and 2) it had a tennis court located at the top of a hill that offered a spectacular view of the surrounding area and was completely isolated from the rest of civilization. I'm so glad that Laura and I decided to climb the hill to play tennis that evening, because it is one of my fondest memories from the trip. The funniest part was that when we got to the top of the hill, we were greeted by none other than Shadowfax! Fitting considering we had just spent the morning touring Hobbiton, a land well known by Gandolf, the owner of this stunning white horse. Oh yes, and Bambi also decided to come view our tennis showdown. And so Laura and I spent the evening playing tennis atop of a hill in New Zealand alongside Shadowfax and Bambi while we watched the sunset over the surrounding land. It was bizarrely wonderful.

My favorite tennis court, located atop a hill in Waitomo

Shadowfax. So white he glowed

Bambi came by to say hi.