New Zealand 4: Dolphins and Hobbits

Thursday morning we awoke in our rental house near Rotorua, New Zealand. We had to be up and ready by 7 a.m. so we could catch a dolphin watching tour at 8 a.m. at the ocean, which was an hour away.

It was a beautiful drive with some fog and lots of trees. (Some of them are tree farms used for paper and stuff).

Once we reached The Bay of Plenty, we boarded a boat on the "Dolphin Seafaris" (nzdolphin.com), and headed out in search of dolphins.

Mount Maunganui stood prominently above the harbor as we headed out to sea.

The captain was from Vancouver, British Columbia (Canada). He was pretty funny, and taught us lots of fun facts (including that dolphins are one of the only mammals that mate for pleasure, and that they often mate up to 70 times per day. "So," he said, "if you believe in reincarnation, you might want to come back as a dolphin.")

They served orange juice, ginger snaps (which are supposed to help with seasickness) and oranges, as Linette demonstrates.

(Let's see now, where have I seen that look before. Ah, yes, in March of 2010...)

They offered a $50 gift card to the first person to spot a dolphin.

After about 45 minutes, someone spotted one, and soon there were dozens of dolphins swimming all around our ship, especially at the front, where they love to "surf".

Here's a 5-second clip of a bunch of dolphins popping up in unison.

We got to dangle our feet off the front of the ship and dolphins were swimming right below.

Look at this dolphin blowing bubbles at it prepares to surface.

Here is about 8 minutes of random dolphin footage. (Feel free to watch as much or as little as you'd like.)

The tour was advertised with the phrase "Swim with wild dolphins!" so they set us up with wet suits and snorkel gear (though some of us brought our own). The reviews suggested that about half the time, you're not allowed to get in the water because juveniles are spotted, and they feed 100 times per hour, and people in the water can disrupt that. So I was pretty excited when they allowed us to get in the water.



However, the boat has to keep moving or the dolphins will go away, because they like surfing off the front of the boat. Also, they're mostly up front for the same reason. So in the end, it felt less like "Swimming with wild dolphins" and more like "being dragged through the water in the general vicinity of wild dolphins."

I did see them down there a few times, but they were kind of far away. By far the best part of the tour was seeing them from up top. Still, though, it was fun to get in the water. (Later in watching the video clips, I heard the captain say, "Is that a shark?" And Melissa Lym said that she had seen the shark earlier, before our swim. I'm sort of glad I didn't know that at the time).

After the legally allowed 90 minutes of hanging with the dolphins, we headed back to shore. Along the way, we saw a penguin swimming around (a "Blue Penguin", also called "Little Penguin"). Apparently they swim around 20 miles a day, and dive 15-60 feet below the surface to catch fish.

I had a nice chat with the captain during the last part of our journey.

The captain and others all recommended a fish and chips place (Bob's "Fresh Fish Market"), and it was indeed excellent (and busy--probably for that reason). We had had Indian, Korean, Italian and Turkish food, so this was our British food.



Poor Linette felt sea sick for most of the dolphin tour, so all she wanted for lunch was diet Pepsi, at least at first.

We had just enough time to drop by Mount Maunganui (aka Mount Mauao) for a quick little hike, but not enough to go to the top.

Even from just a little ways up, the view of the beach below was "awesome as" (as they say down under. They don't say 'as what', apparently leaving that up to you to fill in).

There were sheep roaming the hillside, which was lovely.

We were disappointed not to have more time there, so we eventually decided to come back another day.

Meanwhile, we kept seeing these cedar trees and thinking they looked like those "fake tree" cell towers.

It was interesting to watch the school kids as they crossed the street, because they instinctively glanced right as they stepped out into the street, since that's the direction cars would first be coming from.

At that point, we busted a move to get over to the town of Matamata to visit the "Hobbiton" movie set. Along the way, things already started looking like a pastoral hobbit setting.

When they first built the hobbit set for Lord of the Rings, they tore it down after filming, since that was the deal with the owner of the farm. But so many fans showed up looking for the place afterwards, that when they rebuilt it for The Hobbit movies, they decided to make it permanent (and charge admission).

Our guide was from Scotland, and had a thick ahkseynt. Also, I always thought that they had photoshopped Hobbiton to make it look so green. Nope.

The hobbit holes were adorable!

The hobbit homes made us all feel so tall!

Here's someone's back window.

There was an amazing attention to detail through the set, with different houses the home to various occupations, like woodworkers, beekeepers, and so on.

The thing the director was looking for was a huge tree with a field in front of it (for the birthday party) and a hill nearby (for the homes). When they saw this place from a helicopter, they knew it was perfect, so they landed and made a deal with the man who owned the farm. The ground was too swampy, so they hauled in dirt and planted new sod.

One guy's job was to hang the clothes on the clothes line each morning and take it down each evening for a month before The Lord of the Rings footage was shot. He didn't know why he was doing it. (What do you think?)

It turns out that it was to make the grass look properly tromped on so that the area would look "lived in".

And here we are at Frodo's house, or "Bag End".

It made me think of the quote,

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

(Like New Zealand!)

The front door opens and there is stuff inside for a few feet, but the inside scenes were all shot elsewhere, where they used a large set and a small set for hobbits and humans, respectively.

Incidentally, in the scene where Gandalf bumps his head on the chandelier and then whacks his forehead on a roof beam--he was supposed to hit the chandelier, but the beam was an accident, so that was actual pain. Fortunately, he didn't break character, so they kept it in the movie.

We were all huge!

The whole place was cute.

Here is the mill (it has a water wheel around the side).

At the end of the tour, we all got an ale at The Green Dragon. (Ginger ale, that is).

Uh-oh. Too much ale.

The carving of the green dragon was great. The guy at the bar is actually a local farmer. The place hires mostly locals in order to support the local community. Plus it's fun for them to come join in.

At the gift shop, you can buy One Ring (for $150).

We were all feeling a bit worn out after doing two days worth of stuff in one day. Again.

That night after driving back to Rotorua, we eventually found some tasty stuff to eat. Shauna found some enchiladas that were amazingly tender and tasty. I called them the "French pastry of enchiladas."

I did some sort of Turkish thing again.

And we finally made it to a store to lay in supplies for the rest of the week, including breakfast food, ice cream, toilet paper, and makings for a barbeque for Sunday afternoon. And delicious "Tim Tams," which are chocolate covered "biscuits" (=cookies) with caramel inside. Just the essentials.

In the next episode we do some white water rafting and visit a "little" redwood forest.