New Zealand: Rotorua, Hobbiton and Waitomo

Hobbiton is the movie set of the Lord Of The Rings (LOTR). The set has been kept as-is, including the Shire and is now a tourist attraction — in Matamata, New Zealand.

There are hundreds of frogs in this lake which were continuously making noise that could be heard over everything else in the movie. They tried catching the frogs and failed. So everytime they had to do a take, they would reportedly shoot a gun into the lake, after which the remaining frogs would grow silent for a while. If nothing else, the gory tale told by the guide made it worth the traveler's tale!

 A screen saver!

The tree at the back is not real but made of metal leaves and branches. The guide told us that each leaf was carefully and painstakingly put up by labour. Then the director finally looked at it, and said the color is all wrong! Then all the leaves had to be repainted..Of such are traveler's tales, whether true or not.


Just outside the Waitomo Glow worm Caves. Unfortunately, no photos are allowed inside the caves ostensibly because the glowworms can get disturbed. Instead, superimposed photoshopped pictures are made separately and sold to travelers for a tidy sum. I know Photoshop and can do my own images sitting at home instead of traveling all over!

The top rated restaurant in Rotorua happened to be, no suprise, Indian. Punjabis manage the place, and we were at home ordering food. 

The full name of Whakarewa Thermal Valley was actually Te Whakarewarewatangaoteopetauaawahiao which means "The war dance of the war parties of Wahaio" in Maori.

The name of our guide was Wiremutuhoehaturinitemaruatemara Benfell.

He asked us to simply call him Liam instead.

Maori concatenates entire words into a single compound word, so it can be a sentence.

Storehouses like these were used for food. We saw similar storehouses in Himachal Pradesh in India when we were trekking to Vijaya Top.

A hunk of old wood from a fallen tree. Since the Maoris claim not to cut trees, they wait for old trees to fall, and these are very precious. I suppose the huge forestry exports (around 3.5 billion dollars annually) may not include wood that the Maori like for carving in handicrafts.

 Flax weaving is even now taught in New Zealand by the Maoris. Flax made from species in New Zealand (wharekiki and harakeke) is unbelievably strong. Maori culture and economy had deep connections with flax which was used for textiles, baskets, fishing nets, torches, river rafts, and hundreds of uses. Medically, poultices made of flax were used to treat ulcers and boils, and it was also used for bandages. During wars, it was used as armor against muskets, which helped make the guns only wounding and not as deadly.

 Claudia Höfler from Austria is truly an amazing girl. She did several of the Great Walks of New Zealand in a single day. That's quite hard because each of the walks are 30-50 kms of hard walk, and people take 3-4 days to do them. When she's at home in Austria, she regularly goes climbing mountains after work.

The maoris most probably crossed the ocean in a canoe such as this one.

Whichever city I went to, I received help from numerous people! I specifically remember Rotorua, which I visited on Christmas Day.

We were invited out of the blue to a Christmas Lunch by an old lady named Anne, and was glad I accepted!

It was at their local church, and the spread was sumptuous with turkey, Greek salad, and over three deserts. I was expecting some of their well-famed wine, but there was grape juice instead since they were probably teetotalers.

Christmas Lunch: Turkey

Christmas Lunch: Home-made bread

And then Lance, one of the guests, at the church offered to drop us off, which soon turned into an offer to take us around Rotorua in his car. He was driving us around, and walking with us to see the Redwood Forest, the Green and Blue lakes, and visiting a hot water pool for almost four hours. I stopped early on, and asked, “I hope you don’t mind my asking, but why are you going out of your way for us?”

His answer was simple – because we were travelers from outside, and he wanted us to see as much of Rotorua as possible, and there wasn’t any public transport. I guess I was a little wary of receiving so much kindness, and hope I can pass on the same to some other travelers to my own city. 

Claudia was our roommate and joined us through Christmas day on our walk.

Redwood Forest

The trees were really huge! Perhaps from the previous millenium.

The green of this pool isn't because of moss, but because of the fumes from the bottom.

Roturua lies along the fault lines where the two continental plates come together. It is therefore part of the so-called “Ring of Fire”, and witnesses continuous volcanic activity. Hot water springs, volcanic mud baths, and the ground belching sulphurous fumes all are common.

This was the "Champagne Pool", so called because carbon dioxide bubbles would rise up from the bottom of the hot volcanic pool. The red at the sides is caused by iron deposits.

New Zealand is really a different continent all by itself. Around 85 million years ago, the Zealandia continent broke off from Gondwana land (the general single mass of land when all the continents were together) and sank into the ocean. When the Indo-Australian and Pacific plates drifted, small parts of Zealandia were pushed up out of the ocean creating New Zealand about 25 million years ago.

A mud pool at Waitopu

The kiwifruit picking work requires a lot of youngsters, and typically they are picked up for summer holidays for fruit picking work at NZ$ 18 per hour (minimum wage is NS$ 17.70/hr).

An australian black swan family.