Dear Everyone
Half of our Auckland adventure. One last installment will be the rest of Auckland and Wellington
We have a routine flight to Auckland on Air New Zealand. They check our boarding passes when we get on
as well as in the gate. I guess they
want to make sure there are no unwanted passengers. This is also the first flight since arriving
in Australia where we have to show ID (passports) at the gate. In Sydney and
Cairns we walked through security without showing boarding passes or ID. We fly
into the Auckland airport which is on the west harbor of the city, on the
Tasman Sea. This is a stormier and
deeper waterway, and where Auckland’s shipping port is, unlike the East harbor,
which is on the other side of the North Island, facing out into the southern
Coral Sea. There is an area (Otahuhu) where
the island is only about one mile wide!
New Zealand’s desire to keep out unwanted foreigners is
amplified by our wait in customs. It
takes us mere minutes to clear immigration, but over 90 minutes to get through customs. There are ample signs warning people not to
bring any type of produce on the island, and Indonesians and South Koreans need
to go through a special procedure because of recent outbreaks of hoof-and-mouth
disease in those countries. I think they
also check the planes for snakes and whatnot (there are no snakes in New
Zealand - - not even in zoos!).
We find our driver in the airport. There are more tourists coming in than
expected, probably because of the World Cup, and also it had been kind of
stormy earlier in the day, so a lot of flights came in at the same time. We pile in to his van, and get to the Pullman
Hotel, where we are met by a couple of Roadtrips personnel who are the tour hosts
for the world cup package (they also have some excursions we could have booked
through them, but Cheryl and Cindy decided it was easier to plan our own). We get a little talk about meeting tomorrow
morning for the first US game (against Vietnam), and about a welcome party at a
restaurant on the East Harbor a couple of evenings in the future.
We check our luggage in, rest up a bit, and then head out
into the rainy, wet, and cool Auckland evening in search of something to
eat. Our hotel is up the hill from the
main harbor (Auckland is pretty hilly), and a couple of streets from the main
drag. We have to zigzag our way down
there, and it’s dark and disorienting. Unlike Australia, it seems that New Zealand streets close up early at night. I
felt like having a burger, and the place that is nearest to us turns out to be
unacceptable - - it’s an outdoor diner/food bus with no seating. We step into a steak restaurant (the Angus Steakhouse, apparently a well-known institution, but they are not ready to seat us, and it’s
not what I want anyway, so we make our way out and finally by chance hit the corner
of Queen and Custom streets, and find a local fast-food chain called Burger Fuel. It’s a bit like Smashburger, but better. The burgers come with grated beets! I get one called ‘the bastard’, as well as
kumara (New Zealand sweet potato) fries.
Auckland 2
Breakfast is included with our hotel room, and it is a
pretty good spread. We walk a little bit
outside around Albert Park, which is one edge of the University of Auckland,
and then back to the hotel where there are two buses to take at least 60 of us
to the game in Eden Park (There is another contingent of Roadtrips game
tourists staying at the Hilton).
Eden Park
is a moderate sized stadium (capacity 50,000) used primarily for rugby union
and cricket. It’s about a 30 minute drive from the city center, and it doesn’t
even take us that long - - I think the Roadtrips team was anticipating more
traffic. The bus stops in a suburban
area (across from a dance studio; we see the little girls coming out from their
lesson, tutu-clad). It’s about a 15
minute walk through suburban housing which abuts the stadium, but no one is
selling off-the-street parking. I think they were restricting traffic in the
area to residents only.
The stadium is a nice venue, and just inside the entrance
are a whole bunch of food trucks selling a variety of things. We circumambulate the inner deck. There is a FIFA store that can’t be more than
30 square meters, and what looks like an hour long wait to get to the front of
the line. It doesn’t look like they are
selling anything that we want. Cheryl and
Cindy get some crepes for lunch, and I have kumara fritters. Instead of having a beer, I buy some
concoction of whisky, ginger ale and lime, while Cindy has passion fruit and
rum. It’s only partly sunny and a bit chilly in the low 50sF. We are seated midfield about 10 rows up next
to a Texan couple. He is a former air
traffic controller, and has died his large handlebar moustache
red-white-and-blue. If only I had grown
out my beard! I try to have a
conversation with him, but he is not much of a soccer fan (I think his wife was
the force behind this trip), and he has a pretty heavy accent - it’s easier to
understand Australians.
The game itself is only ok (in my opinion) after all the
excitement of flying across the world and walking through the stadium. The Vietnamese players look like middle
schoolers next to the much bigger American team. I would guess on average we have 4 inches and
thirty pounds on them. They play the US
team physical, but the ref is pretty easy on calling fouls on them. The Americans take virtually all of the shots
in the game, but only make 3 goals.
There are a lot of Vietnamese immigrants in Auckland, and every time one
of their players gets the ball, or their team crosses the midline, a large
cheer erupts.
After the game we walk back to the buses; there are
Roadtrips agents stationed at important intersections to make sure we get where
we are supposed to be. I get separated
from Cheryl and Cindy on the way back and actually make it to the bus before
them. The drive back is much worse; we
are hung up in traffic for 20-30 minutes near the stadium before we finally get
on the main trunk road back. When we get
back to the hotel we have an early dinner of Thai food.
We are relaxing in our rooms that evening when the fire
alarm goes off around 7 pm! I’m not
taking it too seriously, assuming it is a false alarm. Cindy opens the door, sees
smoke coming from the stairwell on the other end, and tells me to get a move
on. We exit and meet Cheryl down in the lobby.
We find out that the New Zealand team is staying at our hotel; they are
all bunched up across the street.
Everyone is surreptitiously taking photos of them. I am caught by some officious security person
and have to delete my photos (as if any people outside New Zealand know who
they are…). Note from Cindy- Henry was
standing across the street from them, obviously taking photos. There is smoke
on the second, third and fourth floors, and lots of police and fire
personnel. The very loud and annoying alarm
is turned off after about 45 minutes, but it is still another 30+ before anyone
is allowed back into their rooms. We
find out the next day that the fire was deemed ‘suspicious’ by the authorities,
and they eventually charged
a 34 year old for burglary and arson.
Auckland Day 3
The reason we were getting ready for bed so early the
previous day is that we had a 5:45 am start for a long day of tourism. Even though we didn’t get back until after 7pm,
this day did not feel as long as our Daintree excursion in Cairns, perhaps
because the end of the day was pretty interesting.
Our large van starts with fifteen, but four get out midway
through our tour at Lake Rotorua. We also split our group up later in the afternoon, so it
never feels super crowded. We drive
through the New Zealand dawn to our first stop (with a pit stop at a BP for
snacks and bathrooms) at Hobbiton. As we drive in along the rolling hills I can’t
help but think on how humans have profoundly altered the landscape of these
islands. Yes, Europeans did quite a lot of
‘damage’ in both the New World and Australia, but these were already inhabited
by other people for thousands of years, and these people also used fire and
other techniques to change the land to their liking. However, no one lived in New Zealand until
about 1300 AD, and I do not think the Maori who settled here had the ability
(or desire) to change the environment as much as the English did. These pastoral rolling hills were once
covered with dense forest. There is
still some wild land left, and I think New Zealanders are serious in trying to
re-wild parts of the island (note the reintroduction of the kakapo).
Hobbiton is the
remains of the second set built for the Tolkien franchises of Peter Jackson. Our Hobbiton guide tells us that when Jackson
was scouting sites for his movies, he was looking for a farm with a hill with a
major tree on it (for Bag End),
and a small lake nearby. He found a
perfect site at the Alexander farm. When
the production team came knocking, Mr. Alexander was watching a rugby match,
and he had no idea what the film people were talking about. Later, his wife and kids convinced him to ok
the deal. The set for The Lord of the
Rings was impermanent. It took nine
months to build, and three months to film, and then was taken down. When ‘Hollywood’ reappeared to make the
Hobbit movies, Farmer Alexander realized he was sitting on a gold mine, and
insisted that they rebuild Hobbiton with permanent materials. It took 24 months to rebuild for 12 days of
filming, and tours have been running since. In fact, they were using the area for filming
Rings
of Power on Amazon Prime (sorry, Joey).
Our tour guide recites a bunch of factoids about the set
during our two hour tour. They hired a
bunch of locals to walk the pathways for six months to make them look
natural. The tree over Bag End is artificial
and has thousands of glued on leaves.
Some other trees were a plum in the book, so they had to get rid of all
the apples on the natural apple tree, and wire up plums (for a shot that was
seconds long). There are also lots of forced
camera perspectives in the film to make Gandalf look large and the hobbits
small, all part of ‘movie magic. They
hired somebody to rub some kind of slop on all the wood to make it look aged
and lichen covered (until the lichen started growing on its own).
The tour ends at the Green Dragon inn, where
we can get ginger beer, cider, ale, or stout.
We all independently choose stout.
Afterwards we are given ceramic Green Dragon mugs, because part of the
set had been closed off for the Rings of Power shooting. I found the whole experience fun, but a bit
bizarre. It’s strange to me that so many
people would travel to see something that 1) is from a work of fiction and 2) a
movie set based on that fiction - - that is, a fake of a fake. Still, I posted pictures of this experience
on Facebook, and it by far got the most approving comments.
After Hobbiton we continue to drive south to Lake Rotorua. This is a large lake on a still active volcanic caldera. The air smells of sulfur, and there are many nearby pools with bubbling mud and steam rising. The lake is almost exactly 26.2 miles in circumference; hence it is the site of a yearly marathon. We let out some of our passengers, and then drop off a couple more at Te Puia, where they are going to have a Maori style lunch (we were not aware that this option was available). Meanwhile we are driven back to a little shopping center where we decide to have a Burger Fuel lunch. Cheryl and Cindy have venison burgers, while I have a spicy chicken burger. They are good, but we all think two meals there are enough in one week.
The driver drops the three of us back to Te Puia for a tour, while he brings the remaining passengers on to another area called Wai O Tapu, which has colored thermal springs. Te Puia is a Maori cultural center, as well as a geothermal wonderland. The Maori have been running an art school here for many years, where students can learn either wood carving (three year program), stone carving (two years) or weaving (two years). They also run a gift shop (I get a handy little color pamphlet on New Zealand birds there), a restaurant, and a guided tour business. Best of all, they are a kiwi conservation site, and so we have a chance to see kiwis (no photos allowed).
First we go to the school, where we see students wood carving, stone carving, and weaving, and then through a little museum where everything is for sale.
Next, we go along the trail, and see the kiwi house in dim red light. Kiwis are the size of a pheasant or a large chicken! I always thought they were around quail size. They lay enormous eggs, and only one at a time (although they can clutch several times a year). The egg incubates for about three months, and it takes a long time for the birds to mature. They are endangered due to habitat loss and predation by introduced animals.
We end up at the site of a multiple geysers that are blowing their top. It was amazing! That is the end of our tour, and the three of us walk the long path back, passing some more mud pits and seeing some Maori long boats.
We get back on our van and drive back to Auckland. After we arrive, we walk down to the harbor in the dark (thank goodness for Google Maps) to the restaurant that is hosting all of the Roadtrips people for a meet and greet. Food and drink are plentifully supplied. We are sitting at a table with a Texan Grandmother, her son, and teenage grandson, who are staying at the Hilton. The three of us find the grandmother to be overbearing, and perhaps a bit rude. My guess is she controlled the purse strings in the family.
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