Leaving Rotorua and on to Taupo!, November 29 & 30

 November 29

Local band playing Christmas music

Festival vendors 

   Today we left Rotorua after doing a bit of shopping. It was the sunniest of the days here.

Christmas Parade

   There was a Christmas Festival and Parade almost at the front door of the hotel. We wandered around the booths and listened to a bit of the community band playing Christmas music. It was strange to hear "White Christmas" on a beautiful spring day!

    We decided to wait for the parade. So, we checked out and then sat on the second floor veranda of the hotel to watch as townsfolk gathered. There were lots of young families and children dressed up. It started with a bagpipe band and then featured the usual parade groups in any small town. Fun to watch.

   We left around noon to drive about an hour south to Taupo. We stopped along the way and had a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, something we keep on hand when we don't feel like eating out or want to have a picnic.

    We checked into the Taupo Motel & Spa where we have a little apartment and balcony with a view of Lake Taupo and three volcanoes, the biggest being Tongariro, which is snow covered. Lake Taupo is roughly the size of Lake Tahoe, for reference. It is a caldera from a volcano, an eruption bigger than that of Krakatoa. It is still capable of erupting and also causing a tsunami. Yikes.

   We went to Master of India restaurant for dinner- very good.

   

Mount Tongariro in the center, flanked by two other volcanoes. This is the view from our balcony!

Once home, we went to the outdoor mineral hot pools that are part of the motel. We are not particularly "good" at hot pools and tend to go in, get restless and hot, and get out. We don't seem to get the meditative part very well. But, it was relaxing, for sure and we will probably visit it daily as it's complementary.

Some of the hot pools (and one cold plunge) at the motel

November 30

   

We booked a sail on this for tomorrow!

We went to the marina in Taupo this morning and studied which boat we'd like to go out on while we are here. We opted for a sailboat for tomorrow morning.

Huka Falls

   Then we drove to Huka Falls, a short drive out of town. The falls are a series of waterfalls on the Waikato River, New Zealand's longest river which drains into Lake Taupo. It is one of the highest-flowing waterfalls in the world as the river narrows from 100 meters across to just 15. The word "Huka" means "foam" in Maori - an apt name. The water is so very blue and the river so clear.

    Today is an "eat at home" day as we just want some simple food. So - ham and cheese sandwiches on our little balcony for lunch and salad fixings for dinner.

Sunset over the volcanos and lake - from our balcony!

   

      

  

Rotorua, November 27, 28

 November 27 

Polynesian Spa

Smelly Lake Rotorua - nothing lives in it at all

   Today was a peaceful day. We started with another good breakfast at the hotel.

   We spent several hours at the Polynesia Spa dipping into the 7 outside pools - some alkaline, some acidic. We couldn't really tell the differences, except some were hotter than others. We did quite a bit of reading, too.

  We went to the Mitai Maori Cultural

Experience and Dinner Buffet which is just a few kilometers outside of Rotorua.

    It included much of what we saw at Waitangi Treaty Grounds in Paihia. This one was more focused on entertainment, whereas the one in Waitangi was a more serious affair. We saw similar dances and demonstrations of weaponry through dance. We saw another haka. We also saw a war canoe being rowed in the narrow gorge.

    We then went in to a big buffet dinner. The food was cooked in traditional style by an underground oven.

      We sat at a table with two interesting Americans from Austin - he is a high school math teacher and she's an environmentalist. We were on the same page as to what Trump is doing to the country. 

Our excellent and informative host

     The meal was pretty good - lamb, chicken, veggies, salads.... desserts. We were definitely full. 

     We considered it our Thanksgiving Dinner.  There was no turkey, cranberries or apple pies in sight. But, there was a stuffing. Thanksgiving is not until tomorrow back home, but....tomorrow is Friday here, so.....today was as good a day as any.  

    The evening was especially smelly when we got home and we heard that it has something to do with cleaning or dredging in Lake Rotorua. It was even pretty smelly in our room.

  November 28 - Thanksgiving back home

    We sent and received many Happy Thanksgiving wishes. 

     After breakfast we walked a bit of the thermal park that is part of Rotorua with bubbling mud and water. And smells.

The hotel has a collection of old phones

     Then, we drove to Blue Lake which is normally bright blue due to its bottom. But, as it was overcast while we were there....it wasn't blue. We walked on a trail above the lake for about a mile trying to see birds. We heard quite a few, but it was very dense forest, so we only got glimpses of fluttering. But, it was a really nice trail to see the size of the trees and ferns which are hard to capture in a photo.

    

Stunning hillside of ferns and pines. Hard to see how huge. the ferns are

On to Rotorua, November 25 & 26

 November 25

  We left Matamata which we so enjoyed and drove the hour to Rotorua, a city of about 80,000 on the shores of the sulphur-smelling Lake Rotorua.

    We were able to check in early to the Prince's Gate Hotel, a grand old hotel. We are on the ground floor. Our room has a chandelier!

Prince's Gate Hotel

The lobby decorated for the holidays

    We went to the tourist bureau and had Vietnamese food.

    Then, we walked a bit in the Government Gardens and down to the lake which was less scenic than we had imagined and...way smellier!

     Barbara took another short walk to locate the hotel where we can go into the hot pools should we want to and passed a very hot spring en route.

     We had a light dinner of appetizers at the hotel.

November 26

        Our hotel includes breakfast, so we had a hearty one before taking off early to Lake Okareka, a few miles out of town where we had a full morning of bird watching and saw some fantastic birds on our walk. 

Breakfast (Mark in background)

      En route we got some very good news from home and almost at the same time, we spotted a New Zealand fantail which displayed its tail for us repeatedly. (But hard to catch on camera).

We also spotted a yellow hammer, another gorgeous bird that we have heard, but not seen, until today. These birds will remind us of the good news that we heard for the rest of our lives, we think.

Hard to see, but a fantail who displayed for us, but hard to capture with a photo

      We also saw: common white-faced heron, pied stilts, Australian swamp hen, (known here as pukeko), Paradise shelduck, song thrush, two kinds of cormorants (the little black cormorant and the Australian pied cormorant which also known as shags),

Pied Stilt

blue teal - a blue duck not the same as ours, grey teal, rosella, swamp harrier, silver eye (fleeting glimpse), common chafinch Grey gerygone, New Zealand bellbird (another fleeting glimpse), red-billed gull, tui and some other common birds like the blackbirds and song sparrows.

Yellow hammer

We heard a sacred kingfisher and a European green finch, but just could not see them.

       Timing was great as it started to pour when we got back to Rotorua and we had lunch in the lounge at the hotel in comfy leather chairs and checked our emails, working on photos and the blog. (WiFi is not great in our room.)

Ferns and Redwoods

       After lunch we went to the Redwoods Forest here. The redwoods were brought from California at the beginning of the 20th century because New Zealand had cut down so many of its native species.

 They grow faster than they do in California due to the moisture and fertile soil.

 

     The native tribe now owns the Redwoods here. There is a 700 meter tree walk, but we opted to walk a circuit of about two miles. We heard two new birds, but never saw them, although we tried - the Tomtit (endemic to N.Z.) and the Shining Bronze Cuckoo. (The tiny cuckoo is the most southernly parasitic bird who parasitizes the nest of the gerygones.

    We ate a sandwich in our room and then went across the street to the civic center where, for a week, the children of the area perform a yearly celebration of the Maori culture. We thought it would be nice to support the local schools and am sure we were the only tourists there! It was family and kids.

    It is so interesting to see everyone singing, dancing and speaking Maori when most of the population is non-Maori. One of the schools had all their children with drawn-on chin tattoos. We sat next to a teacher in one of the schools and she explained that in this area, everyone is taught both languages.

Warming up outside before going "on"

    It was quite joyful.

   

Hobbiton, November 24, 2025

 Today was our Hobbiton Day! 

There we are - in the Shire

 We generally avoid "tourist trap" things, but had been told this one would be worth it. We were lucky to get tickets because they were almost sold out and we had to get one that included lunch - of course a bit more expensive. And, what a wonderful day we had!

 

 Hobbiton is a short distance from Matamata. The day was beautiful with blue skies and puffy white clouds. It was a trifle too hot when we were walking in the sun. We took umbrellas to provide shade, a first for us. But, we are glad that we had them.

   The first thing we did was to board a bus which drove us through the 1250 acre Alexander farm to the part of the farm that has preserved the movie set.

The bulk of the farm is still used for agriculture with 14 acres set aside for Hobbiton.  

     Director Peter Jackson scouted the site for The Lord of the Rings. The first sets were built in 1998-99. They were built to be temporary and most disappeared, were dismantled or disintegrated. 

    The sets were rebuilt in 2010 for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. 

   The site has been expanded since the movies were made and more added. There are now 44 Hobbit Holes on view with two homes recently added for people to walk through. The tour group split into two, with half going through one of them. Our part of the group explored the Proudfoot bungalow where you are allowed to lie in the beds, sit in the chairs etc. 

   

Inside the Proudfoot home

Our tour took about 3.5 hours because we signed on for lunch, which was at The Green Dragon at the end of the 1.5 mile walking tour through the village.

   

It is all beautifully done. Our tour guide was a knowledgeable, self-proclaimed Tolkien nerd.

She talked about his humble beginnings and the effect World War One had on him. She said that he had based Samwise Gamgee on the brave and loyal privates and "batmen" who he served with in the trenches when he was an officer. 

Eating hearty Hobbit food at the Green Dragon

    She explained that New Zealand's farms have to commit to native plantings. The farm has planted 22,000 native trees since the set opened with more planted each year. 

   She told us that 40% of the visitors have never seen the films...and even fewer have read any of the books. But, it is promoted as one of the top sights to see in New Zealand, so....

   As a side note, Mark re-read The Hobbit this week to remind him of the story.

 

  Jess told a lot of interesting tidbits about the filming, most of which we quickly forgot.  But, one of them involved the "Party Tree" above the Baggins house. It was important in the first film and it had to be replicated in the consequent ones. But, as that tree had been brought in from Matamata, it was not possible as it had been taken away. (never planted). Peter Jackson insisted that it be replicated. It is made of plastic and steel etc. The leaves (over 300,000!) were made of silk and imported from Taiwan. But, with a ten-month delay in the filming, the leaves had completely faded. So, they were taken down and, in four days, 8 people repainted them and put them back on the false tree. The tree was shown for 10 seconds on the film! It still looks remarkably real, by the way.

    Our guide told us that there are six thatched buildings in all of New Zealand with five of them being in Hobbiton.

    The flowers are gorgeous, especially as it is now full-blown spring. They site itself is simply beautiful with the green hills in the background.

   

Mark outside The Green Dragon

It is an overdose of cuteness!

    We were with an international crowd of interesting people and we had lunch with two young men from Houston - one an attorney; the other an engineer.

    We did not expect much from the lunch, but it was actually excellent with lots of choices from hearty-stews, vegetarian options, salads and a lot of desserts. We both ate way too much!

Maybe a little bit bigger than a Hobbit?

Barbara at Bilbo's writing desk