Journals #26 and #27: Back to Back
3/27/16/-3/28/16
Cover Photo: “Back to Back”
Sheep Spotted: 2000+
The last two days have been action packed- so I’m going to split this journal into four different headers: Sailing, Hobbiton, Glow Worms, and Ben the Bus Driver.
Part 1: Sailing on an America’s Cup Catamaran:
The most striking thing about riding on an America’s Cup Catamaran is how massive the sail is: the main sail on the boat (which was from the 2007 Cup) is 115 feet tall. That’s not including the other sail (a Spinnaker I believe), which was almost the same size.
I was one of about 12 tourists on board, joined by four experienced sailors from around the world (a Kiwi captain, a Frenchman, a Brit, and an Aussy). Due to this no longer being a racing ship, they have made two noteworthy adjustments to the boat: It now has an engine (during the race the boats are towed everywhere) and they replaced the sail with a cheaper one that’s more durable (a racing sail lasts only 40 hours and costs $250,000+ each- usually a team will go through about 10 during training and competition).
That- combined with our junior team (we were tasked with helping raise the sails and tacking) meant that we were nowhere near the record speeds set during the Cup (40+ Knots or roughly 50 MPH), but we did get up to a (somewhat) respectable 14 Knots.
The coolest thing about the catamaran is that when you pick up speed, the boat is at almost a 50-degree angle- meaning if you are on the bottom, you get a bit wet!
I didn’t bring my big camera on the boat, but here’s a quick photo from my iPhone:
Part 2: Hobbiton
Hobbiton is the actual set for “The Shire” in the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies. Unlike other LOTR filming locations I’ve visited, Hobbiton has been left completely intact and is run now as a private business (which is the only way it can work- for reasons I’ll explain in a different post, the NZ government has a somewhat antagonistic relationship with Peter Jackson and the Lord of the Rings and doesn’t like supporting tourist attractions related to it).
A couple logistical things for those interested in visiting:
The set is roughly 15 minutes from the town of Matamata, which is 2 hours from Auckland or 1 hour from Rotorua (depending on where you are staying). The easiest way to get there is by bus tour- once you actually get outside the property, the only way in is by tour bus anyways, so you might as well pre-arrange it (if you don’t, it costs $80 per person and you’re packed in on a massive Hobbiton staff-run bus).
Speaking of which- the set is packed. I would guess at any point, there is roughly 250-300 people on the small set. I did see some companies advertising “Small Group Tours” but from what I saw, that seems like a scam: I saw several so called “Small Groups” merged in with bigger tour groups by the Hobbiton staff.
All that said- the set itself is awesome. Not only are there still 40 or so fully intact “Hobbit Holes” (including today’s photo: Bag End!) but also the entire area is run as a giant organic garden. All of the vibrant fruit, vegetables, plants, and trees are real and maintained by the staff there!
After you go through the guided tour they take you to the Green Dragon Inn where you can grab a beer (I did the “Hobbiton Stout”) and grab lunch. Another plus of Pre-Arranging the tour: You get access to a delicious buffet lunch.
Overall- the experience is great. If you are a Lord of the Rings fan, this is a can’t-miss spot.
Part 3: Waitomo Glow Worm Caves
I did a combined tour of Hobbiton and Waitomo- so after leaving Hobbiton we all piled back on the bus and drove about 1.5 hours to Waitomo.
Waitomo has become famous for a series of massive caves that contain “Glow Worms”- little tiny worms that attract their prey by glowing Green in the dark.
The tour is about 45-minutes- you explore the upper part of the cave by foot and then take a boat tour through the lower part.
Unfortunately, you are not allowed to take photos during any part of the tour- so if you want to see what it looks like, here is a photo someone else took: http://sites.psu.edu/natesnatureblog/wp-content/uploads/sites/6701/2013/11/waitomo-glowworm-caves-1.jpg
I don’t think I would have done this tour on its own, but as a combined full-day tour it works pretty well! You end up missing the traffic in Auckland and getting back around 7pm. It’s also pretty cheap- at $250 NZD, you avoid Gas cost (would be about $100-120 for this trip), entry fees ($80 for Hobbiton and $45 for Waitomo), and the entire thing is guided (you also don’t have to wait in line- in both Hobbiton and Waitomo the average wait looked to be about 30-45 minutes).
Part 4: Ben the Bus Driver
We had a highly entertaining Kiwi bus driver for the Hobbiton/Waitomo full day tour. His name was Ben and he sounded almost exactly like Jeremy Irons.
During the roughly 5-6 hours of driving, he covered on the loud speaker (in great detail) the following topics:
-The New Zealand real estate market
-The color of cows in New Zealand
-Infrastructure Projects (both recent and historical)
-Frequency of cow milking on Farms (solid 15 minute monologue)
-Types of popular footwear in New Zealand (he kept coming back to this one for some reason)
-Fences- especially how much better the South Island is at putting up fences then the North Island (An hour long discussion- evidently Ben used to put up fences back when he grew up in Queenstown)
-Sheep Hygiene (this one is a bit gross- look up “dags” if you want to learn more)
-Famous Sheep Stories (The most entertaining was one about a sheep named “Shrek”)
-Types of Trees in New Zealand
-Other tours we were not on
-Ben’s various occupations over the years (evidently he was an Ice Road trucker down in the South for awhile- he said the chances of rolling off a cliff were so high that no one wore seat belts).
That’s it for these two days- Auckland is going a bit slower than some of the other places I’ve visited, so I may keep doing the combined 2 day posts.
Cheers,
Morgan
