Tuesday began the first of two early mornings, where we learned that of the four of us Todd is the only one who naturally wakes up early. He managed to cook us breakfast and corral us into the car to start the drive to Hobbiton. The drive took pretty much exactly how long google said it would and we arrived at the Hobbiton movie set at the Alexander family farm exactly on time. We navigated to the tour line and hopped on a big tour bus that drove us through the farm to where the set for Hobbiton was kept. The movie set was first put together in the late 90’s and then torn down, but was re-put together in 2011 for the Hobbit movies. They decided to keep it together after that so they could do tours, smart business decision for sure.
We entered through the little stone walkway where Gandalf meets Frodo in the Fellowship of the ring and then progressed up through the layers of Hobbiton. Our guide was really knowledgeable and shared some cool stuff about how they used the size of the hobbit holes to their advantage. The smaller hobbit holes were used in shots where human-sized characters were interacting with the environment and the larger hobbit holes were used for hobbit-sized characters. The hobbits all have decorations outside their holes that relay what the hobbits like the most. My favorite was the cheese-liking hobbit hi had a big wheel of blue cheese outside. Adela thought that was gross and liked the hobbit with the keg of beer outside.
It took about an hour and a half to make our way through the movie set and it ended at the Green Dragon Inn. I got an amber ale and Adela got a stout and we drank them by the lake. Very scenic. We also saw the resident cat Pickles doing some old-fashioned pest control.
After admiring the One Ring for purchase we decided we didn’t want dominion over all living things and instead wanted to see a kiwi. So we got in the car and headed to Rotorua to the Kiwi Encounter at Rainbow Springs. When we arrived everyone was a little hangry so our first stop was to Sushi Gallery and a Turkish Kebab restaurant. It turns out a kebab is more of like a gyro/wrap food, but it was still super fulfilling. We scooted over to Rainbow Springs and my first thought was that we had entered a Dutch Wonderland style kid park. Mostly because we were on average the oldest group of people there.
Luckily I was wrong! The guy checking us in had a good read on us and told us to skip everything and go straight to the Kiwi burrow to see the Kiwis. They have a little educational center that teaches you about the majestic kiwi and then a nocturnal room where they trick the kiwis into being awake during the day. It took a few minutes but we were able to locate two of their three kiwis walking around and eating bugs. They were not the most graceful of birds but it was still a really cool experience. You can’t take pictures because they’re nocturnal and are constantly moving. After accomplishing our goal for the day we rode Big Splash (their log flume) twice and sauntered over to the aviary for a stroll.
Everyone was really impressed with Rainbow Springs, it still had a kiddie vibe but we enjoyed it thoroughly. Todd and Katy said the actual kiwi viewing was better than any they had done before too. That was pretty much it for the day’s activities, except for driving an hour or so to Taupo. Todd and Katy cooked some delicious Indian food and we all passed out around 9:30 to get ready to wake up even earlier the next day.
We had to wake up at 5:30 on Wednesday because the activity of he day was hiking by Mt Doom! It, unfortunately, is not called Mt Doom in really life but it’s the mountain that has a starring role in the Lord of the Rings. The hike itself is the Tongariro Alpine Crossing and is 19.4 km long with a berjillion feet of elevation gain. We parked our car at the end of the hike car park and took a shuttle to the trailhead. When we arrived there was still significant cloud cover obscuring the mountain, but it burnt off as we approached it which let us snag some good photos.
The crossing is by far the most popular, and according to Todd the best, hike on the North Island. Because of this it’s almost a steady line of people hiking from the start to the end. Todd and Katy normally hike way faster than me and Adela but we traveled probably at the average speed of hikers. After the berjillion feet up we carefully slid down exceptionally loose stone/dirt until we arrived at some scenic geothermal pools. We ate lunch in the presence of the delicious sulfur smell and then began the descent. The way down is a little monotonous because it’s about six miles of steps going down 4000 feet. It ends in a cool rainforest though. When we got to the bottom me and Adela decided we could use some total knee replacements.
We managed to finish the hike in a little more than 6 hours with an average speed of about 2 miles/hour. With half a kilometer left Todd asked if we wanted him to run the rest of the way and have the car ready. Neither Adela nor I could even think about running at all, but Todd is next level. He had prompted us to bring our flip flops which was a great idea because our feet needed some freedom. We finished the hike before 4 pm which meant when we got back the bubble tea shop was still open. Katy and Adela got some bubble tea but had to share the tapioca because the guy didn’t have enough left for two full servings. Turns out bubble tea is a great post-hike drink! We spent a little bit of time rallying at the AirBnB and then walked to dinner at a local taphouse. They had a pretty good selection of beer! I got a steak sandwich, Katy and Adela got fish and chips, and Todd got a gluttonous amount of ribs (it was the special).
After dinner we decided that we needed to go to the hot spring to soak. Katy and Adela had been researching the local hot pots and we went chose the DeBretts spa. We had no idea what to expect other than that there would be hot mineral water. And boy was it awesome! There were a variety of naturally heated mineral pools (don’t put your head in the water cuz the amoebas) and each one had a slightly different temperature. We had a good soak which let out some of the post-hike tension, and then spent the waning time on the pool trying to see who could balance best on the inflatable rings. It was hard, especially because we had been warned to not get our faces wet (we were pretty confident there wouldn’t be any amoebas). We came back and had a moment of reflection for the last moments of Adela’s 20’s
