Auckland and Hobbiton
So our ship arrived in its final port of Auckland where we spent a couple of days. Here it is waiting to take another load of hungry cruisers to Perth on its next journey (Celebrity Solstice on the left).
First stop in Auckland was the Auckland zoo where I was determined to see kiwis before we left New Zealand. This was no easy task as they are nocturnal creatures and we had already failed in this quest in Rotorua where we had sat in the dark for ages in a kiwi enclosure to no avail. However, today we were lucky and finally found a couple in this zoo (very hard to photograph in a nocturnal enclosure!).
In the evening we went up the Auckland tower with wonderful views and had dinner in the revolving restausrant. A long way from home here and a long way down from the top (328m). They do bungee jumping from the top of the tower -definitely not for me!
On our 2nd day we did a long drive to Hobbiton- the film set for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Apparently the set was built for Lord of the Rings and then torn down. However, it had been made into a permanent exhibit for the the Hobbit films so that visitors could see it afterwards. Only the external filming was down here - there is nothing in the Hobbit holes and all the internal filming was down in Wellington. If you are a fan of the movies you will recognise this landscape.
The Hobbit holes are of 2 different sizes -60% or 90% depending on what they were filming eg the 60% holes were used to make Gandulf look really tall.
This is the artificial tree that was made for the filming. With nearly 400,000 hand painted leaves!
Of course most tours finish with a drink and this was no exception - beer and cider in the Green Dragon pub.
So that’s the end of our time in New Zealand. We leave our fellow travellers for a couple of night stopover in Hong Kong before heading home.
First stop in Auckland was the Auckland zoo where I was determined to see kiwis before we left New Zealand. This was no easy task as they are nocturnal creatures and we had already failed in this quest in Rotorua where we had sat in the dark for ages in a kiwi enclosure to no avail. However, today we were lucky and finally found a couple in this zoo (very hard to photograph in a nocturnal enclosure!).
In the evening we went up the Auckland tower with wonderful views and had dinner in the revolving restausrant. A long way from home here and a long way down from the top (328m). They do bungee jumping from the top of the tower -definitely not for me!
On our 2nd day we did a long drive to Hobbiton- the film set for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit. Apparently the set was built for Lord of the Rings and then torn down. However, it had been made into a permanent exhibit for the the Hobbit films so that visitors could see it afterwards. Only the external filming was down here - there is nothing in the Hobbit holes and all the internal filming was down in Wellington. If you are a fan of the movies you will recognise this landscape.
The Hobbit holes are of 2 different sizes -60% or 90% depending on what they were filming eg the 60% holes were used to make Gandulf look really tall.
This is the artificial tree that was made for the filming. With nearly 400,000 hand painted leaves!
Of course most tours finish with a drink and this was no exception - beer and cider in the Green Dragon pub.
So that’s the end of our time in New Zealand. We leave our fellow travellers for a couple of night stopover in Hong Kong before heading home.
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