Hobbiton (~ Feb 6th)

New Zealand. A country, that got a huge boost for its tourism thanks to Lord of the Rings.
After the LotR movies - where they had built several smaller hobbit holes out of plastic etc. many people went on nerdy pilgrimages to see the locations of the movie. And people asked the farmer, whose farm land was used to film the shire, if they could visit the film site. He quickly saw an opportunity and talked with Peter Jackson and the others about making it a tourist location. They agreed and so the Hobbiton fever started.
There wasn't a lot to see back then, because they had torn down everything after finishing filming the movie. But when they started filming "The Hobbit", they decided to build Hobbiton with lasting materials, more wood and stone instead of plastics and hence the tourist location and village Hobbiton was born! Soon many bus tours were arranged, parking spots were built and a small visitors centre was built a the entrance to the farm, so people could buy merchandise, book tours who came by car and just get more information about this great place.

Of course I wanted to go there as well. Since I read the books and watched the movies I had been a great fan and when I had planned to visit New Zealand that was definitely on the top of my to-do list. So after the tour in Wellington and the hike to Mount Doom this was third big thing I did for my "nerdome".
I booked the tour from the tourist Information in Rotorua and went to the Hobbiton shop there the next morning. The bus was slowly getting fuller and left on time. The bus driver showed us a few clips of the LotR and The Hobbit movies and short movies about the place, one where Peter Jackson and the farmer himself welcomed us to this tourist attraction.
We had a short time at the visitors centre near the farm to do some shopping, I was quite disappointed that this break was so short. I would have liked to browse a little more and have more time to decide if I wanted something, but this way I spent much less money there, which was probably good :D

The tours are all very well planned. They probably start every 30 minutes. A bus drives from the visitor centre to the shires entrance and picks them up there once it's over. We could see many other groups walking around Hobbiton. But being in a group you can't really just walk around, relax and take it in as you like. Our guide always was couting us so no on gets lost and made many stops to keep us together. Of course all of them planned ahead and so everyone gets the same experience and no one can complain! Depending if you book a normal tour or a banquett tour you'd be there during the day or in the evening. I don't know if the banquett evening tour is worth it, I heard different stories, so I just did the normal walking tour. And I really enjoyed it!

The bus left the visitors centre with our guide for Hobbiton itself. Once we arrived at the entrance he welcomed us and started the tour talking about the scenes, the building process and other things about Hobbiton.

Welcome!

With our guide we entered Hobbiton =)

He showed us where many scenes were shot and told us of their tricks. There are some very small and some very big doors, depending if they'd make a scene with Gandalf or with hobbits! Of course Gandalf would stand infront of a small door while a hobbit would stand infront of a "normal sized" door.

I was amazed by all the details they had made. Basically it looked like they had just finished filming the movie and left everything just as it was. Just hobbits walking around were missing!

Clothes hanging out to dry, food in small stands, a pie cooling on a window sill - everything! Just fabulous. I loved it.

Really nice, how they built everything so detailed!

Post boxes, chairs, lanterns, so many small things! Amazing!

Gate to Bilbos famous house

Of course a highlight was Bilbos house with the big tree over it. That tree was actually a fake! It was made in Japan so it'd be evergreen (but it's made of metal!). Sometimes when there was a storm or heavy winds, they might have to make new leaves, because they can fall off, but so some lucky travelers might actually get to keep a leaf from Hobbiton!

We had a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it seemed a wonderful day for a party on the party grounds! If only Bilbo was celebrating again. We saw the house, which ended the Lord of the Rings movie - Sams home with his wife. The kids he was holding were actually children from him and another one of the actors. The baby might actually turn 18 in a year or 2! She'll then get the paycheck - should be an awesome birthday present ;-)

The tour ended in the famous green dragon Inn! Everyone had a choice of an ale or soft drink. The ales and beers are being brewed exclusively for the shire! They can only be bought here and maybe in a few official LotR fan shops around NZ. So it was very nice to relax there, sit where hobbits would and drink one of their beers! Fantastic!

The green dragon!

Our guide gathered us and led us back to the bus, where we got to see some more movie clips and a farewell message from the farmer and Peter Jackson.

Eh? What's all this fuss about outside?!

Taupo the second, march on Mordor (~ Feb 4th)

Mordor here I come!

That's what I thought to myself when I was driving to Taupo again. I wanted to do the Tongariro Alpine Crossing before (in December), but the weather was really bad... But the weekend I was there it was finally good weather! Awesome!

The hostel I stayed in was able to book a transport for me and so I was able to go there in the early morning and do the hike. I met a girl from Melbourne in my hostel, who was doing the same thing so we decided to hike together!

Off we go!

In the early morning (it still was dark) a bus stopped infront of our place and many people got in. After stopping at some more hostels and hotels in Taupo the Bus drove south towards the Tongariro National Park. After about 1,5 Hours we arrived at the car park and were able to finally start hiking. I had brought my sticks along and was ready for the climb! Annie and I started walking. Durch the bus drive we got some info on the trek, a map and some other things. So we knew which way to go and how long which part of the hike should take. We were doing fine and finally got some nice views of the mountain (Nghauruhoe), that inspired Mount Doom for the Lord of the Rings. The mountain is holy for the Maori and supposedly wasn't actually filmed for the movie (at least that's what the guy from the tour in Wellington said) - They used a CGI generated volcanoe, that was inspired by the actual one.

The plains and volcanic fields around the mountains. You can almost imagine orcs living there and hiding behind rocks!

That's it! To the right are some toilets... Ehem...

Another view on the Volcano and to the right the Tongariro

So we started the hike. Annie and I had a good time, talking and watching the other people. There were A LOT! Several buses arrived at the parking place and dropped off dozens, probably hundreds of eager people to trek up this mountain. Good thing was you never had to worry where to go - or at least to get lost alone. Downside was you always had people around and so it simply wasn't as secluded/ natural as I'd have liked it (I just adore the nature especially when I'm not surrounded by a group of people, then I usually can't enjoy it as much). But as we went on walking, the herd started to thin out and you weren't in a bulk of humans any more.

The first climb was a little tricky, but nothing compared to the treks I had done in 2016 ;-) After a few hours we reached the frist crossing of the trek. You can decide to go up the Nghauruhoe - or Mount Doom - or not. The climb up to the peek takes several hours and isn't easy. On our map it said when you should start it the latest, so you could arrive at the bus in time (they stopp driving back to civilization at about 5 or 6 pm I think). So if you hike slowly and take all the detours the buses might not wait!

We decided not to go up, I was thinking about my bus later on I wanted to catch, so I didn't plan to do any detours.

The next part of the hike was simple, very straight forward past another old crater, one of which is partly filled with water. From there the probably hardest part started! It was up a ridge between the Nghauruhoe and the Tongariro. The description mentioned it being difficult, especially when the wind is blowing and it did! Wow! It was really strong and at some points we had to struggle to keep going. This was another place where the group of humans split up even more. We finally made it to the top and reached the second crossroad. This one I was more confident about and was happy about passing the wind so I convinced Annie to join me up there. We headed to the summit of the Tongariro Mountian. There were only few others doing it, so it was much calmer and we could enjoy the "nature". But there was just basically rocks, sand and so on around, because it's a volcanic region. We reached the top (which isn't that spectacular, almost like the tallest Annapurna peak) and had wonderful views of the surrounding area! And the taller Nghauruhoe was standing proudly opposite of us, we could see some colourful dots walking up the side of the volcanoe, very few people decided to actually climb the mountain.

Panorama from the top of Mt Tongariro

The way back was easy going and we reached the crossing again and went on with our regular track joining in the streams of other hikers. Then we saw one of the highlights of the trek - the emerald lakes! Beautiful colourful lakes shing bright green, blue and really amazing between the surroundings, which were simply red, brown or black.

Emerald lakes - beautiful!

The way down wasn't that easy, you had to be careful of many loose rocks and a lot of sand, so your steps weren't always that secure. We overtook many people, especially older people who had problems going down the sandy bit. Other guys almost ran down this bit which seemed effective aswell, but a wee bit more dangerous I guess. We stopped for lunch at the side of one of the lakes enjoying the view and realxing while the sun was slowly showing itself again. The weather was pretty good, thatnks to clouds, it wasn't too hot, additionally the wind would cool you off, when the clouds were blown away. Almost perfect!

Past the Emerald Lakes a view back to Mount doom with another big volcanoe (with ski-places) in the background

Blue lake, the biggest one in that volcanic area

After lunch we headed on past the big blue lake and slowly got to a much greener section of the trek. It was the north side outside of the volcanoe massive so many plants were able to grow here I guess. The path was now often a board walk and we met several people going the opposite direction. But they were probably doing a different trek. There are several treks into the national park, some are several days long others - like ours - for one day and I can imagine there might be some for a few hours as well. After the last hut the path took us down the mountain again. People started speeding up and I also realised I was kind of late, thanks to the detour up the Tongariro peak I was a bit afraid to miss my bus to Roturua. So we kept up with some others and walked down. Now the hike was a bit more boring, just straight forward, not much of hills or so. The sun came out again but had arrived further down, where a small forest was growing and gave us shade.

Finally we saw the car and bus park, found our transport and I asked when they'd leave. They checked the time and their sheets, how many are left. Luckily they were able to leave a few minutes later and I was able to make it to my bus in time. Of course the bus to Rotorua HAD to be late, so I could have been much more relaxed on the way back, but you never know! 

The day before I had found a wallet on the street and dropped it at the police station. They made me fill out a form and then suddenly why I was waiting for the Bus to Rotorua I got called by it's owner who wanted to thank me! He wanted to invite me to a coffee, but wasn't in town and I was leaving, so it didn't work out. But it was nice of him to call to say thank you.

Wind, Wellington, Wargs and Weta (~ Dec 17th)

So I was in Wellington. In the first few minutes I thought to myself: "Well this is a windy city!" And that is actually it's nickname: Windy Wellington!

Windy Wellington:

I headed to my hostel and got a 6 dorm room instead of a 10 bed dorm room (yay) and it was ensuite (yay!) for the same price (Yay!). And I had it to myself in the first night (YAY!) - Good start ;-)
Of course this meant I had to find some other way to get to know people, but that wasn't too hard in this hostel, as it is rather big. You could just hamg out in the kitchen or common room and meet alot of people. I walked through the city in the evening, I really enjoyed it! It reminded me of Hamburg, more than Auckland. Especially the wind :D
Just walking along the harbour promenade was pretty beautiful. With it's lights, views on the harbour and so on it made me a little sentimental thinking back to the city I had lived in the last 7 years.

The next days I walked alot around town, met different people, some moved into my room and left again. Then with Antigone (german of course) and another german I visited Mt. Victoria. The guy had to catch a flight, so Antigone and I spent the afternoon together, enjoying the pub culture in Wellington and visiting the cool Museum "Te Papa", which is for free (except some special exhibitions). This is a big museum with different exhibitions, one about the first world war (New Zealnd had a population of about 1.000.000 people back then and they sent 100.000 into the war! Thats 10%... and only about 7% returned)

View from Mount Victoria

A slug slurping a worm?! Found in the Wellington Museum...

Of course there were constant exhibitions about the history of New Zealand, Maori culture and the earth, especially going into details about earthquakes. Because for New Zealand earthquakes are almost a normal thing. Before I arrived in the Beginning of November there had been another big one on the south island destroying mostly a highway.

The day before I visited the Museum I went into the "beehive", as they call the government building in New Zealand. Here I participated in a free tour and learned about the NZ government.  The building had 3 parts, the beehive being the most modern, then the house of representatives about 100 years old and the library about 150 years old. In the 90s they made the old buildings earthquake proof! They installed a so called isolated foundation. The building then stands on rubber-lead platforms instead of it's actual foundation. Thanks to the rubber the building can move up to 30 cm in any direction and not be too effected by the earth moving underneath. They are also installing this technology on many buildings in Christchurch, which was destroyed by earthquakes in 2010/2011 and slightly 2016 again. I thought it was really impressive to see, that the actual buildings is really "standing" on 100s of these rubber installments and not on its actual foundation. There actually was a 5-10 cm gap!

I had convinced Sönke and Ronja (who would be in Welington a few days after I had arrived) to join in on a full day Lord Of the Rings Tour! I was really excited!!
I booked everything and was looking forward to that day.
Then new people moved into my room and I met another Silja! She was from Switzerland though and wanted to speak english rather than german (she being from the german part of course could speak german). But I enjoyed being forced to speak english once again =)
That is in fact really not that easy in New Zealand. You find german people everywhere. And of course they band together and then there are alot of german groups hanging around. I really can't imgaine, that only german people travel to New Zealand, but I don't know where all the other backpackers are. Of course you meet a few french people here, british there but not as many as germans. But this way you are never forced to speak english and can always retreat to a safe place and talk german while in another country. The people I wanted to meet - I of course knew before - and I knew I'd meet them, but I still was suprised that there were so many other germans and literally every place I stayed in there were other germans.

When Silja left the rest of my room left aswell and it was filled with completely new people. Now also Sönke and Ronja arrived and I met them for the big tour on saturday!
While I was enjoying my breakfast I noticed two men sitting next to me using sign language! I couldn't really understand anything, so I figured they'd use a different language, than I knew. When I met one of them again in my hallway I tried talking to him and he told me he is also from Germany and his friend is from France, so they used "international sign language" (basically 80% ASL = american sign language, as he told me). That was pretty cool, to be able to speak DGS (german sign language) once again! But they left and I was about to go on the tour, so I hoped to see them later after the tour again.
But wait... They were standing waiting for the same tour! So then I was made into an interpreter for the 2 fellows and tried telling them what our guide told us. It was always a chain, I translated the guides english explanations into DGS and Nils (the german deaf guy) then translated this into ISL for Arthur (the french deaf guy)! I realized once again, how bad my vocabulary is getting... but I guess that is understandable if you haven't been using it for almost 6 months. But I have to try practice more, once I get back. They were very happy that I was there, because the short films and so on that were shown in the bus didn't have any subtitles and the notes they got from the guide were rather poor. But he was at least that commited, that he printed out his notes so they could understand a little bit! I think that was really cool from our guide. But of course if you can understand all the fun tidbits, details and jokes he tells it is more fun. And unfortunately the notes didn't describe everything on the tour, rather a few places. In all it was quite lucky I was there, I guess. This was they were able to understand a little more a join in on some of the jokes.
I really enjoyed the tour, both because I love Lord Of the Rings and also because I was able to use sign language again. We were able to reenact some scenes (the guy had brought some costumes etc.) and actually stood where some of the stars of the movies stood and that was a cool feeling. Especially when he showed us scenes, that were just filmed in some public parks, some in central Wellington or other smaller suburbs just ourside the capital. Incredible.

The last day in Wellington I had to check out of the room to move to another one. But when I checked back in I got the same room again. And the same bed. I don't know why they made me check out in the first place, just because I had extended for one night... anyway, I was back in my old room :D
Again it was filled with germans, though one girl was from Denmark! Woohoo! She understood german a little, but of course I spoke english again. She left in the early morning to catch her ferry to the south island and so did others, my ferry was in the evening that next day...
After my last night in the hostel I checked out and got ready to leave for the ferry. I was able to keep stuff in the hostel and so could walk freely without my bags, I had a nice time with the people from the hostel, got some last minute shopping done for dinner and then walked to the ferry station.
I had to give up my guitalele, because they were afraid I might play it on board and harass other passengers I guess... Not very cool, but luckily they took good care of it and I got it back when I arrived on the south island a few hours later!

Here we see some tricks used by the film makers, Gandalf rode "through" this "bridge" on his way to Isengard

Sam and Sönke just chilling on their way to Rivendell

But then the dark Rider approaches! Near....

Far! Where ever you are!

 No worries: Legolas to the rescue! (this poster-reenactment was taken in the Rivendell location)

That was the last we saw from him...

The Weta Cave exhibition - many small and bigger figurines, helmets and weapons of their movies (of course a lot of Lord of the Rings)

Dangerous angry Lurtz in the Weta Cave shop! Don't worry, he only bites hobbits and elves... except you climb him!