One of the highlights of our trip to Middle Earth (I mean New Zealand) was definitely our tour of Hobbiton. If you’re reading this, then it’s pretty likely that you already know that when Peter Jackson rebuilt the the Shire for The Hobbit films, it was done in a way that was intended to be permanent. If you are a fan of the Lord of the Rings – even if you only read the books – this is really a…
As the days go down in the West, behind the hills and into shadow, I’m going to be reflecting (i.e. catching up) on some of Ariel and mine favorite travel memories from our adventures. I figured I’d start with what is probably our favorite hike together of all time, finding the filming location for Edoras from the Two Towers. Right off the bat, know that you do NOT need to be a Lord of the Rings nerd to appreciate this…
So we got home late last night after an extraordinarily exhausting 53 hours of travel, including some borderline time travel that I’m still trying to wrap my head around. Consider this, our flight left Auckland, NZ on Saturday at about 11:30 pm New Zealand time, crossing the international dateline shortly afterwards. We landed in California (after a 12 hour flight of nonstop turbulence) at 2:30 pm. On SATURDAY. That’s about nine hours BEFORE we departed. We went to sleep in…
They took the hobbits to Isengard. The question was, would we find WHERE they took the hobbits to Isengard from? Anytime I’m going off on the road, I like to take on some side quests. This comes from years of playing games like Fallout and Zelda and can range from simple things like finding the world’s biggest ball of twine (that’s in Cawker City Kansas, also near the geographical “center” of the lower 48 states) to more off-the-beaten path stuff…
Well, I’m sitting here now at the lovely Emperor Club at the Auckland Airport. We had a three hour drive today followed by a 90 minute flight from Queenstown to here. Now we begin the real journey home, via California. Since our last update, we’ve continued having some really wild experiences. As I alluded to in the last post, on Wednesday morning we had our tour of “Rohan” AKA the Poolburn Reservoir area in the Otago region. This place was…
So it’s been a while since our last update. Mostly because we just haven’t been able to sit still (aside from sleeping) for much longer than an hour at a time. Since leaving dreary, rainy Wellington, our injuries have mostly healed. Ariel is back to normal and I’m getting over a nasty cold/runny nose that cropped up early on Saturday morning. Apparently running yourself ragged on the slopes of Mount Doom and then going on 2-3 hour hikes immediately afterwards…
On Wednesday, Ariel and I traversed the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. Or in other words, we attempted to simply walk into Mordor. We had known this day was coming for months and even made some half-hearted attempts to “train” for it by doing a few hour-long hikes around New Jersey. We were unprepared. Our bus picked us up from the Park Hotel where we were staying at 7:30 am and dropped us off at the start of the trail around 8…
Bilbo was sadly reflecting that adventures are not all pony-rides in May-sunshine… –The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien So this isn’t a vacation. We knew this. You knew this. It’s an adventure. What’s the difference, you ask? Well, it’s simple really. Vacations are relaxing. Adventures are awesome. But occasionally adventures also suck. And like the word “awesome” sometimes it means amazing, sometimes it means intimidating. When you’re trying to cram an entire country into 13 days, you’re going to experience a lot…
Well, it certainly has been a pretty nutty first few days for Ariel and I on our trip. Our goal has been to combine the Tolkien stuff with some of the, you know, actual real New Zealand. Renting a car (or taking buses) is a great way to see how the country really works. This is a major reason why we didn’t just book ourselves on a Lord of the Rings type of tour. Also, we want to see what…
It would kind of have to be The Hobbit, right? Lord of the Rings is too long/big/bulky to bring the entire three-book volume. And anything not Tolkien-related would be silly. This is a trip to Middle Earth after all. Obviously, we’re not talking about a Kindle situation here (in which case bring whatever you want), but rather a scenario where you’re carrying everything you need for weeks on your back and have to make some hard choices. And if you’re…