Wellington was really great. We stayed at another hostel. This one was huge but well appointed and we had an en suite bathroom, so it wasn't too bad. The city is adorable and Kara and I are very excited to come back to live there in the winter. It has a great coffee scene and I've heard good things about the craft beer and music scenes too. We went into some of the cutest and most tempting stores in the world. Unfortunately, it's quite expensive (Kara and I were despairing a bit) but we've got hope that we can find two part-time jobs to cobble together and, since minimum wage here is more than I was making at my last job (sob), we can probably manage! We do hear that while the weather doesn't get too cold in winter, the wind gets very, VERY intense. Apparently it comes right through the Cook Strait into the city from Antarctica and it's frigid and even more powerful than Chicago winds. We've got 6 months to prepare!
Our drive down to Wellington from Rotorua was really lovely. It took us about 5 1/2 hours, and we only stopped for gas once! Gas is quite expensive here (like $8/gallon), but Hestia probably only takes around 10 gallons and gets great milage to boot. We passed every kind of scenery imaginable during our drive; we went through a forest into a sheep-covered valley into a desert (!!) back into a forest and finally right along the ocean to get into Wellington. All that in five hours! The desert we passed is called the Tongariro National Park, where the Tongariro Crossing is; it's very flat with scrub bushes everywhere, and there are huge mountains in the middle of it all. One of them is Mt. Nguaruhoe, which we passed, and which was used as Mt. Doom in Lord of the Rings. It was largely covered in clouds though, and all of the mountains were still covered in snow. We're glad we waited on the Crossing.
Wellington was really great. We stayed at another hostel. This one was huge but well appointed and we had an en suite bathroom, so it wasn't too bad. The city is adorable and Kara and I are very excited to come back to live there in the winter. It has a great coffee scene and I've heard good things about the craft beer and music scenes too. We went into some of the cutest and most tempting stores in the world. Unfortunately, it's quite expensive (Kara and I were despairing a bit) but we've got hope that we can find two part-time jobs to cobble together and, since minimum wage here is more than I was making at my last job (sob), we can probably manage! We do hear that while the weather doesn't get too cold in winter, the wind gets very, VERY intense. Apparently it comes right through the Cook Strait into the city from Antarctica and it's frigid and even more powerful than Chicago winds. We've got 6 months to prepare!
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Imagine a town built on top of hot sulfur springs, and you'll be imagining Rotorua. It is SO COOL. It also smells so bad...
I'll back up. On Thursday, Kara and I showed up at Brandon's garage to get the car (SUCCESS) and drove down to Rotorua (SUCCESSFULLY! And without any car troubles.) to stay at a lovely AirB&B. I think I said in a previous post that driving in New Zealand (so far) has been really great. Most roads are two lane "open roads", meaning that they have a top speed limit of 100km/hr (about 60 mph), though a lot of people break it. This includes even the main highway through the Island. There have frequent passing lanes added on, so no one has been too angry yet that we haven't be going any faster than 100. It's actually hard to get Hestia up to that speed, haha! The roads are extremely well-maintained so far, and the scenery is beyond exquisite, so driving has been pain-free. We've heard it can get dicey as you go into more rural territory though. We'll see. Interestingly, the North Island is billed as the more urban and populous of the two, and you can drive for hours seeing nothing but nature and maybe a tiny town. We looked it up and the total population of New Zealand is 4.8 million. Compare that to the Chicagoland area's 9.8 million, and you can see why the roads feel empty! On Friday morning, we woke up really early and WENT ZORBING! Zorbing is when you swan-dive yourself into a giant hamster ball filled with water, and then you ROLL DOWN A HILL. It was AMAZING. IT WAS SO AMAZING. I want to go every day OF MY LIFE. It was particularly cool to do here because, while you can Zorb all over the world, it was invented in Rotorua! I wish I had more pictures to show, but we couldn't bring our cameras in the ball and they were pricy to buy from the place. Instead, you can see the hill and the ball here. (The hill was steeper then it looks here, though it wasn't too bad.) WE DID IT. Readers, today was the culmination of 13 years of dreaming. The first Lord of the Rings movie was really life-changing for me- it kicked off an obsession that lasted many years and will never really go away. I don't know if you remember, but the very first shots of The Fellowship of the Ring (after Galadriel's Introduction) are of Frodo and Gandalf in the shire. Concerning Hobbits starts to play, and the journey kicks off. Getting to actually go to Hobbiton isn't something I ever really imagined doing this soon, and so today is a huge moment in my life.
There was once a time when I could have recited to you (at endless length) the exact details of how they filmed the Hobbiton scenes, but most of that knowledge is long forgotten. Fortunately, some of it was reawakened today! The Shire sets was built as an actual village. There are no transitions between filming locations- it's all there and every inch is designed to be Hobbiton. Peter Jackson is known for his painstaking- and obsessive- adherence to detail, and so everything looks exactly as realistic as you'd ever hope. In fact, the New Zealand government lent Peter Jackson the Army to come in and built hill, bridges, and roads to make the location perfect. Tolkien described Hobbits sitting under plum trees, but Jackson didn't like the look of the trees. He had apple trees planted, the fruit ripened and picked off, and plums attached. He created the tree above Bag End and, when he didn't like the exact color of the leaves a few weeks before filming, he had his crew go in and individually spray paint every leaf. When you visit Hobbiton, you're really in it, and everything is perfect. They built The Dell even though it was never on camera. The party tree was there. Bag End was, of course, but so was Sam's bachelor Hobbit Hole and the one he shared with Rosie at the end of Return of the King. The party tree was amazing, and in the distance were rolling hills and grazing sheep. Even the walk between Hobbiton and the Green Dragon Inn was realistic. I could have spent a lifetime. We were lucky that the weather was perfect and, since it's still early in spring, we had a small tour group! We've got some great photos to share. I already want to go back! FOREVER. My friends, we had our first hiccup. Yesterday we took the car in to AA to get the brake problem looked at, and we asked them to take a peak at the oil leak and squeaky AC belt while there. They said no problem, and off we went to the Auckland Domain and Auckland Museum to enjoy the day while waiting to get a quote for the work. *Kara says: "enjoy" might be an overstatement- we did some nice stuff in between, but we were definitely preoccupied with the potential time and/or money that the repairs might cost us.* One bright spot is that we found the most ADORABLE cafe, called Little & Friday, hidden inside of a fabric store close to the mechanic. We had a quiche and a cinnamon walnut brioche and it was too cute for words. Also, did you know that drip coffee with cream isn't a thing in New Zealand, really? I ordered an Americano since they didn't have drip and asked for a side of cream, and it was pretty shocking to them! Instant coffee is at the hostel so drip coffee must exist, but people seem to go for the espresso drinks. The other highlight is that a bird pooped on my head. More on this later.
I've written all sorts of words about all of the practical things we've been getting done in Auckland, which means now it's time to update on some of the fun things we've been up to. We've been having a great time! *Kara says: We took a nice walk through downtown Auckland, seeing what the city has to offer. One of the last stops was the art museum- Auckland Art Gallery! It had a really fun Olafur Eliasson exhibition that was interactive, and a surprisingly large collection of Goya prints. In my opinion the best part of the museum is the collection of beautiful and realistic portraits of elderly Maori by Charles F Goldie. It was a nice ramble, and one of the most notable things about Auckland are the beautiful parks! There are so many and they are beautiful.* We found an AMAZING park in the middle of the city called Western Park. You think it's just a small grassy area at first, and then you get on the grass and walk to an edge and look down and it's just this vast hill with wild-growing old trees and windy paths. And that's not even Auckland's main park! (It also has some cool sculptures- chunks of buildings that look like they're growing out of the ground- which are not pictured here but can be seen here). We also spend the Monday on Rangitoto Island. We took a ferry out there which offered an amazing view of Auckland.
We ate there. It was cooked just right with lots of herbs right in with the meat. The worker was wearing a shirt that said "Meat is Murder".
It was delicious. We've been knocking out our to-do list like no ones business! If you all recall, my earlier post Preparations was all about everything we (and other Working Holiday Visa havers) needed to do to get ourselves here. Now that we're here, we've needed to follow up on a lot of it and get ourselves even more in order.
We've been here a whole day now, which I think completely qualifies us to pronounce our Judgment on Auckland. So: It's great! The city is very beautiful. We're staying about 20 minutes outside of downtown, in the neighborhood of Ponsonby. It's probably analogous to Lincoln Park or maybe Wicker Park- upscale, trendy, lots of fun and lots of money. The hostel is absolutely lovely (though I am definitely finding that hostel life is not for me. A surprise to you all, I'm sure.) You'll never guess the first thing I found!
JUST KIDDING! We are in Auckland and we arrived safe and sound. This is my first blog for us--thanks to Lizzy for making all of our posts so far! Our layover at Venice Beach was actually really relaxing, and both the flights on Virgin and Air New Zealand were smooth, comfortable, and went surprisingly quickly! Major success for flying halfway around the globe. At the very end of our flight into Auckland, the sun caught up with us and we saw the most beautiful morning clouds. Flying over New Zealand was just gorgeous, and after we landed we were greeted with a rainbow! We have arrived at the hostel and are taking it easy today--getting oriented, going for walks, and relaxing (and showering, haha). We will be in Auckland at our hostel for the rest of this week, getting our tax ID numbers, finishing up our bank accounts, and looking for a car. (Also trying to figure out how to drive on the other side of the road.) We'll also start planning the next leg of the journey.
Talk soon! xoxo Kara Kara and I are writing to you from Venice Beach! We had a great flight here (we got the exit row... sorry, tall people) and see now spending our 9 hour layover having some touristy fun. New Zealand, here we come!
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October 2015
AuthorsLizzy, Kara, and Jordan are spending a year traveling and working in New Zealand. Share our adventures and keep in touch! Categories
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