Driving to Rotorua via Hobbiton; Rotorua & Volcano Climb

February 11, 2010

After breakfast we settled up our account, and then set off southward, but not without going back to Whangamata first, with the address of and a recommendation to one of Reinhard and Petra’s friends, who owns a panel beater shop, what we call a body shop. Reinhard figured he would fix our dented bumper shell for the price of a beer. Well, it turned out the friend had gone on a fishing trip, and his wife was running the shop. She sent her foreman out to look at the car, who muttered the Kiwi equivalent of “piece of cake,” told us to take a walk around the village and come back in 15 minutes. When we did, there was the car outside, with absolutely no evidence of any damage; I asked about the technique, and it seems to involve an over-powered hair dryer to soften the plastic, and a large suction cup to suck out the dent. When I asked about the cost the wife asked if I thought NZ$20 (about Cdn$15) was fair; I quickly paid up, and we went on our way. Again, I suspect in Canada it wouldn’t have been nearly that cheap, or as quickly done.

We then headed southward. On review, we should have chosen a different route than the one the GPS took us on, which was inland, and taken the alternative route along the shoreline of the Bay of Plenty which would probably have been more scenic. We probably would have done that, had we consulted a map rather than simply punching our destination into the GPS. We happened to have navigation set for shortest time, although in New Zealand, where all roads in cities and towns have a speed limit of 50 km/hour, and highways of any kind a limit of 100 km/hour, shortest distance would have yielded the same result. Thus, we travelled a marginally shorter time or distance, but through less interesting scenery.

Either route would eventually have brought us near Mata Mata, the home town of the parents of the husband of Trisha Longworth Foote. We tried to call them from a land line phone, but no one was home. I then took the opportunity of finding a cell phone shop, and had them test my phone. By a process of elimination we decided that my phone had been damaged, probably the internal antenna broken off, which meant that unless I was directly under a cell tower, I would get no signal. So I asked if by any chance they had unlocked cell phones for sale, and was informed that New Zealand law did not allow cell carriers to lock phones, and thus any phone I wanted in the store would do. This also means you buy a phone, and you buy a service plan, and the prices are independent. Picked a phone model that was not the latest but a good price, and was back in business with portable communication.

Mata Mata is also near the location of the Hobbiton film set, used in the first and last of the “Lord of the Rings” film trilogy. It’s not enough of an attraction, seemingly, that our GPS New Zealand map has it as a point of interest, but after getting directions from a local, we did find our way to departure point for the tour. The set itself is on a working farm, and one parks some distance away and is bused in, for a considerable admission price. (The farmer [he is now dead] was paid well for the use of his land for filming, and his sons will be paid again in 2011 when “The Hobbit” starts filming, but the sons have been making money ever since charging for tours. Once on the set, it is instantly recognizable from the films. The Hobbit holes are still there, but the elaborate fronts have been taken off, and in their place is plywood, painted white. All except one are false fronts and cannot be entered; the only one with an actual room behind the front is Bag End, as that was a location with a scene looking out through the door. The party tree and field are there, and much as they were in the film. The oak tree growing above Bag End is there, in pieces, as it was an oak growing in a different location, cut apart, and re-assembled in its place in the film; the leaves seen in the film are artificial, wired on, thousands of them, by hand. The mill pond is there, but the mill and the bridge were painted styrofoam, and are gone. Now the work of rehabilitating the set for “The Hobbit” has just begun; hedges are being replanted, gardens re-made, and of course the mill and bridges reassembled. An interesting visit, and interesting to compare the reality on the ground with what one sees in the films, and realize the magic of film-making. Also realized is why films cost so much to make! Before continuing driving, we watched a sheep shearing demonstration. Amazing how quickly a sheep is stripped, the wool coming of almost in one complete piece.

We continued our drive to Rotorua, and as we were running late were glad we now had a working phone and could call our hosts for our farm stay and advise them we would be later than expected. It was near 6 p.m. when we pulled into the farm of Jim and Barbara Hitchcock, our hosts for the next two nights. The farm wasn’t quite what we expected, actually very little land, a few grazing animals, and very modern home. We learned that the working farm was actually some distance away.

After checking into our very comfortable room with modern en-suite bath, we joined the Hitchcocks, for cocktails before dinner, and for getting acquainted. We’d picked up a bottle of wine along the way, but had also thought about what we could bring that was Canadian, and probably not easily found in New Zealand. We chose a bottle of ice wine, and it was as if we had brought gold; the Hitchcocks had been to Vancouver and Calgary, had tried ice wine, and really enjoyed it. New Zealand wineries have tried making ice wine, but lack the key ingredient, a freezing winter. Their solution, throw ripe grapes into a freezer and let them dehydrate; we were told the result is best not discussed.

Dinner was fun as we each learned about each others’ countries, and about ourselves. Like most farmers in Canada, New Zealand farmers have to have additional income; as Barbara told us their daughter delighted in telling her friends in school that her father sold semen! He is in fact a cattle geneticist, who indeed does sell semen, but with the objectives of breeding cattle with particular strengths and characteristics.

Jim and Barbara were quite interested in our itinerary, and as so often happens, we had already been to places they hadn’t been, and would go to quite a few more. But, that happens to us in Canada too, as visitors go to places we ignore. However, there is now some concern about a part of our future itinerary; on February 14, a few days down the road, we are booked for an afternoon wine tour in Napier, in the Hawkes’ Bay wine-growing region. But, we are booked into a hotel that night in Gisborne, which Jim assured us, and confirmed with Google maps, is about 3 hours north of Napier, with the way there being a coastal road that in places is quite challenging. Also, Gisborne has nothing to recommend it, according to both Jim and Barbara, except that it is the first large city in the world to see the rising sun; since we try not to see the rising sun, that makes it of limited interest. Also, the drive up would have to be reversed the next day, with not much of interest on the way, adding three hours to what was already a long day. Jim couldn’t understand why we had been booked so far away, as Napier did not lack in hotels, and went back to his computer to see what might be the cause. It seems the coming weekend is one on which Mission Wines has an annual major rock concert on its property, to which tens of thousands of visitors come, and book up all the hotels. But the concert is on the Saturday night, and Jim felt that we should look for a place to stay in Napier when we got there, rather than risking the three hour drive, especially after drinking wine all afternoon.

So, another concern about the “down-under” experts. I suspect that what happened was that no hotels in the class we had asked for were available, and they simply did a proximity search for hotels in our class, and booked the nearest one. If they had consulted us, we probably would have down-graded,if offered the choice. Something to worry about for the next few days.

And so, to bed, to rest up for tomorrow’s volcano climb.

February 12, 2010
Up reasonably early, for a good breakfast with our hosts, because Jim had to be off on his semen-selling business. But not before he suggested that since our volcano climb didn’t start until afternoon, we should visit Rainbow Springs Wildlife Park, which would be on our way. We duly did that, and found it to be a very good suggestion.

First, Rainbow Springs is just that, an amazing series of spring-fed pools, populated by a rainbow trout colony. But more than that, it is an exhibit of New Zealand birds and wild life, in a beautiful natural setting. It was easy to spend a morning there, and it could have actually occupied more time, but we needed to find the Rotorua i-Site, from which our volcano climb would depart. But first, we did a quick tour of the Rotorua lake-front area, which is beautifully maintained, and appears to be a major recreation spot.

There is an i-Site in most New Zealand towns, going from basic tourist information to very elaborate services. This one was not just a place for information, it was a transportation hub for travel by bus to just about anywhere in New Zealand, it found local accommodation, and offered shower facilities for back-packers and cyclists (which are everywhere in this country). After inquiring where our tour might leave from, and being pointed in the general direction of a bus departure slot and told to watch out for signs on vehicles, we enjoyed a Maori musical and cultural show that was being presented in front of the building, trying to remember our brief instruction in Maori custom, such as when a guy in full war paint shaking a spear sticks out his tongue as wide as he can at you, he is saying “Hi!”

Eventually our four-wheel drive bus for the volcano climb arrived, and we joined the rest of those participating for the quite lengthy drive to the beginning of the climb to Mount Tarawera. On the way our driver/guide gave us some of the background to what we would see; Mt. Tarawera was dormant, not extinct, but had a well understood periodicity of eruptions, and was not due for another few hundred years. It last erupted in June 1886, destroying surrounding villages and countryside, and killing about 120 people. The amount of material ejected into the atmosphere was about 2 cubic km, more than Mount St. Helen in 1980.

Mt. Tarawera is also sacred to the Maori, and only the particular company we had booked with was allowed to operate tours, twice daily only, and even they had to renew every three years, and there were parts of the mountain that were totally off limits. Our driver/guide was married to a Maori, and thus understood the customs, and was trusted to respect them.

June had been somewhat reluctant about going on something called a volcano climb, but was reassured when she saw it was by 4-wheel drive vehicle. Unfortunately, that description was not quite complete. The final 1500 metres to the summit is on foot, on trails that are at best rough, and in places quite steep. However, the climb was worth it, the view from the top showed the entire Lake Rotorua area and far beyond. But the real fun started when we went down, at first on a very gentle slope to the lip of the volcanic crater. From there it was basically down a 45 degree slope of small, marble sized lava pebbles called scree. The technique is essentially that used in powder skiing; keep your weight well back and your toes up, and glide down several hundred feet to the crater bottom - and don’t fall because you probably won’t stop until you hit bottom, which would be fatal to the expensive camera and lenses I was carrying. June went down with the help of our guide, I managed to get down without disaster. The rest of the fun was climbing back out, along a long path that snaked up the crater side, back to where we had left the bus. Then the issuing of certificates of completion happened, and the drive back to Rotorua to pick up our car and drive back to the farm.

We of course had volcanic dust and pebbles in every pocket, pant cuff, and exposed orifice, so the first order of business was to shake out everything we were wearing, and then shower. Then cocktails and supper, for which we had supplied another bottle of wine, to prevent dehydration. Jim and Barbara were quite intrigued by our adventure, never having gone up this volcano, which they could see out their window.

After another pleasant evening talking, we retired to rest for the next day’s drive to Taupo.