Hobbiton

 

I knew that if I came as far as Australia, that I would want to see New Zealand as well, but when it came time to book the trip, I didn’t know WHERE in New Zealand to come.  I told the travel agent to book my time here around seeing Hobbiton, so this is the whole reason we are in Auckland.  I am so glad it didn’t disappoint!

We found out that Peter Jackson originally planned to shoot The Shire scenes in pieces, spread over different farms.  However, when he found this farm with the big tree by the pond, they decided that the whole thing would be shot on just this farm.

That's the Green Dragon Inn on the other side of the lake.

The set for the Lord of the Rings was made of temporary materials, and was taken down after shooting.  The Farm owner quickly realized that people wanted to see the set, and so when they came back to film The Hobbit movies, the farmer negotiated to have the set made out of permanent materials so he could make it into a tourist attraction.  I was worried how it would look once I found out it was owned and run by a farmer, but this place could not have been better if Walt Disney himself had designed it.

This is what it looked like when the Lord of The rings was finished shooting.  Not very exciting at all.  That's Bag End at the top of the picture.

We learned lots of cool things about the set, like that the tree over Bag End in the Lord of the Rings films was found on a different site, cut down, and reassembled on site.  Just like a cut Christmas tree, it died after a few weeks and was taken down after shooting.  The tree there now, and used in The Hobbit, is artificial (one of the few artificial plants there).  By the time shooting was set to begin, the colors had faded too much, and Peter Jackson made a crew spend 10 days spray painting each individual leaf a different shade of green!

Can you tell that the tree on the top left is fake?

Close up view of the fake leaves.

We also found out that the hobbit holes were made different sizes, so that some would make actors look larger, and others would make actors look smaller.

These made us look like giants:

Tiny firewood!

Don't miss the tiny axe in the stump behind me.

This made us look hobbit sized:

Each hobbit hole had a back story, and it showed in the details.  You could guess the profession of many of the hole residents just by what was around the yard.

  

The Cheese-monger's house.  Can you see something hanging int he window on the left?

An up close look shows lots of cheese in there.

An even closer look shows they even stocked the back shelves!

The spindle outside the carpenter's house actually worked, and there were saw marks in the saw horses.

Every window had something in it.

Can you guess what this hobbit's occupation was?

The fishmonger had (thankfully fake) fish hanging to dry, in the basket, and in the smoking room.

Some things we found here did not make it into the movie set because they didn’t fit in, other things were just disguised.

The ferns are quite common in this area, so some parts of the farm were just not suitable for filming.

The poor sheep that live here had to be moved if they were in the shot, because they looked too "modern" for The Shire.  Apparently a completely different kind of sheep was imported that fit the story better.

These palm trees don't fit the look, but couldn't be removed, so were just disguised by having branches of other trees put in front of them.  Also, I think this is the part of  The Shire that was only in the extended scenes, and only for a second or two.

After geeking out on every single hobbit hole we saw, we headed to the Green Dragon Inn for some drinks.  They had brews special made for the movie set: Sackville Cider, Frogmorton (non-alcoholic) Ginger Beer, and Girdley Fine Grain Amber Ale.  We skipped the cider and enjoyed the other two very much.

Mom is ready for her brew.

The fire was welcomed after the cool day with off and on rain.

Even the bathroom at the Green Dragon Inn was hobbit-ish.

Then we moved into the party tent for a delicious buffet lunch.  You know we can’t act like hobbits and NOT pig out.  We found out you can rent this tent for special events, like weddings.  Hubby, I want a do-over on our wedding now!

We thoroughly enjoyed our time here, and took about 500 pictures, so here are a few others I just have to share with you.  

We found Bag End.

And Sam and Rosie's home.

The Misty Mountains look beautiful today.

If you come to New Zealand, you should definitely consider a visit to Hobbiton.

Penguin Parade

Our other must-do activity in Melbourne was the Phillip Island Penguin Parade.  I have mom to thank for this, actually.  The tour guide included it originally but I wanted to cut it, but Mom said no way, she wanted penguins.  I am so glad we left it in.

Philip Island was beautiful, but super windy and the waves got massive.  The penguin homes were all around this area, but I would be afraid if I was a penguin having to come in on rough waves over these rocks.  We learned that the penguins come back to next in the same area they were born, so I guess they don't know any different.

The penguins stay out all day fishing, they can actually stay out for a few days if they want.  They come in after sunset to mate, socialize, and re-waterproof their feathers.  Their nests are either in one of these man-made houses, or one they make for themselves.

 They travel the same path back home every night, so it wears these tracks in the vegetation.

We had the upgraded tickets, so we got to sit in a smaller area, much closer to the water.  The normal tickets sat in a big bandstand further down the beach, and much further away from the water.  There was one other option, where you could have a viewing area below where we sat, and look out at the ground level.  A good option if you want to stay dry, but we were above ground, and luckily the rain held out until we were ready to go.  You weren't allowed to take pictures in the are where the penguins came out, but I snuck just this one to show our view.

They came out of the water, over this short beach, the hopped over the rocks to waddle up the path the started just behind that cone furthest to the right.

Our tour guide described the process pretty well: They come out of the water in groups of about 20, then stand around looking all confused for a few minutes while they wait for their friends, then eventually travel as a group up the paths.  Then a new group will come out about 10 minutes later.

Tonight they came ashore in groups closer to 100 most of the time (there were 589 penguins counted the night before), and didn't leave much time between groups, so it was more exciting than usual.  The sea would virtually explode with tiny penguins as they rode the wave ashore, then stood up as the water receded.  Their white bellies shone like mother of pearl, so as they waddled up in a big group, they looked like a school of sardines swimming.  This was my favorite part.

After they got their group together, they would head towards the rocks and hop up (Mom's favorite part), and slowly make their way over them.  Then they would continue up whichever path led to home, and walk sometimes quite a distance, even past the parking lot, to get home for the night.  This led them right past us, and some were so close we could have touched them.  The walkway followed the penguin's path all the way up to the visitor's center, so you could walk right along side them.  We only made it half way before the rain started pouring and we ditched the penguins for cover.  When we got up to the visitor's center, there was a group of penguins right on the sidewalk, trying to get their bearings to find their way back home, while a park ranger roped the area off to make sure we didn't interfere.  Along the way we heard some penguins settling in for the night and making quite a racket.  If you were out there camping, and didn't know they were there, it would be a terrifying sound!

I wish I could have caught this on video for you, it was so cool!  Here is  pretty good representation of what we saw.  This one and this one are also good, but from different areas on the beach than we were, and here are some good pictures.

The penguins we saw were referred to alternately as Little Penguins and Blue Penguins.  They are the smallest penguins on earth.  Their bellies are white so that when predators look at them from below in the water, they blend in with the white clouds, but their backs are dark blue, so they blend in with the dark water when predators from the air are looking down. Those white bellies sure stuck out at night, even in the dim lighting provided, but it sure made a cool effect as they waddled away.

Size comparison to some other penguins.

Stuffed animals can be creepy, but this was my only chance to get an up-close view of them. 

I am pretty sure these were life-sized representations.  Look how little!

If you ever find yourself in any part of the world where you have a chance to see a penguin parade, I highly encourage it. This was a fabulous experience!

Oh, also, according to our tour guide, Chris Hemsworth, a.k.a. Thor, is originally from Philip Island and often comes home and participates in water sports.  So maybe just come here, see the cute little guys, and keep an eye out for a half-naked Thor ;)

The Great Ocean Road

One of the must-do things near Melbourne was to drive the Great Ocean Road.  It was really beautiful the entire drive, including the parts without the sea view.  We passed through quite a lot of farmland (but didn't get any good pictures of this), and saw a ton of dairy cows and some black swans, which I thought were pretty cool.  Apparently all the swans in Australia are black, who knew?

Along the way, we stopped at a nature reserve where we saw wild kangaroos.  They reminded me a lot of wild deer, both in appearance and the way they acted as a herd.  Technically, a group of kangaroos is called a mob.

They spotted us walking up to them.  We didn't get too close to the wild ones, no petting today!

On the way there, we passed through a strip of road with koala crossing signs, and I actually saw two wild kolas hanging in the trees over the road!  Once we got there, we saw some young kolas who had been orphaned, and were being cared for until they were old enough to be released into the wild.  There was a super cute interaction between two of them.  The smaller one tried to back down from his perch, and his butt hit the head of a larger one that was sitting in the crook of the tree.  The larger one was not happy and let out a kind of scream/yelp.  The younger one paused for a second, but had no where else to go so kept moving down, at which point the larger one swatted him in the butt and tried to move him away.  He gave up and turned around as the little one continued to scoot down.  He still wasn't happy when the little one's butt hit his butt, and scooted up the branch a bit.  He was such a grump!  I guess I would be too if someone sat on my head while I was sleeping.

Yes...more kola pictures. But look how cute his hairy little ears are, blowing in the wind!

Eventually the bigger one calmed down as the littler one settled in for a snack.

He was so cute while he was eating!

The biggest sight along the drive was sandstone formations they called the 12 Apostles.  One of the “Apostles” fell about a decade ago due to erosion.  It’s amazing to think that these things have stood for probably thousands of years, yet collapsed in our lifetime.

You can see in the front left portion of the picture the remains of the one that fell.

Some of them had big cracks like this, which made you think they might fall into the ocean t any time.

This was the most crowded of all the tourist attractions we’ve seen.  And maybe also the most exploited.  Our driver told us that we could take a 15 minute helicopter tour over the 12 Apostles….for $150 per person.  And there were helicopters flying, so people are actually paying that!!!

There isn’t much else to say about it, I’ll let the photos do the talking.

We saw more cockatoos in flocks on the ground.  We were only able to get a pic of these two, but isn't it funny to see them like ordinary gulls or pigeons?