11 – 15 April 2023

On the Way from Taupo

Accommodations

Strolling

New Friends – Clare and David

Bonnie loves dogs. So as we were having lunch while waiting to check into our hotel, she reached out to pet Monty (Python), who accompanied Clare and David Lamb. Within minutes we were all friends. Bonnie and Claire connected on clothing and style; they even like the same shade of Lancôme lipstick! David, born in London, entertained us with stories of his youthful travel adventures around the world. The four of us soon had a plan to spend a chunk of the next day together, lunching, shopping, sitting at the beach, and strolling near Mount Maunganui (suggested by Simon and Amy as the Sausalito of this area). Monty bonded with Robert, or perhaps the other way around. Monty spent most of the driving time with his head on Robert’s knee.

We learned more about the history of Clare: working near Pompeii, four years in Paris, assistant at a women’s magazine in Auckland, starting a deli that morphed into a big catering business. Meanwhile David hung out in the Haight in the late 60s and with Berkeley students, had a corporate job in Australia, after falling for Clare quit his job to help with her catering business, and then the two started a successful bakery! Now retired in the sunny Bay of Plenty. Many people we have met in New Zealand seem to have a variety of unusual careers, but Claire and David have had even more.

13 April 2023

Beaches, Gold, and few Birds

Amy Spurdle suggested we check out Waihi Beach and the town of Waihi, about an hour from Tauranga. The beach has a great cafe—the Flat White—(Sorry, Adele, no t-shirts) with a view over the surfing beach.

Flat White Cafe

Waihi is a town in one of the greatest gold mining districts in the world. Gold was discovered in 1878 and by 1952 miners had bored 100 miles of tunnels underground to extract more than 5.6 million ounces of gold and twice as much silver. In today’s dollars, the gold would be worth 11 trillion US dollars. Although the operation shut down in 1952 because it was no long profitable to mine, mining resumed in the 1980s with new extraction methods and the risen price of gold, creating an open pit in the area of the historic mining tunnels. In 2009, the mining operations constituted twenty-five to thirty percent of the local economy.

Waihi’s Town Center and Historic Architecture

Birds Anyone?

Robert saw a sign on the road for a bird park, so in the spirit of exploring all kinds of random things, we took the turn. After leaving the main road, we found this pleasant garden filled with a variety of birds, some loose, others in cages. They all wanted something to eat. Unfortunately, we had not seen the bird feed for sale.

Anniversary Dinner

Australian prosecco and dinner to celebrate twenty-seven years!

14 April 2023

A Trip to the Shire

We debated about whether to go to the Hobbiton movie set. Would it be too commercial? But it was great. Like the Weta tour in Wellington, the tour was down to earth. You take a short bus ride to the site while Peter Jackson welcomes you on a video, then spend almost two hours walking around the village, ending with a drink at the Green Dragon Inn. In our bus group of forty, we had people from Singapore, the Netherlands, Orange County, Italy, Hong Kong, and India. Our guide was from Manitoba, Canada. (His mom, a Kramer, about ten years younger than Robert, is from San Mateo.)

As we walked around the hobbit village, we learned a lot about the filming, and now we need to see the films again. The site is 100 acres within a 1250-acre cattle and sheep ranch. Jackson’s crew first spotted it by helicopter and then after a ground visit, entered a deal to create Hobbiton. The lake and a large pine tree were key factors in selecting the site. They filmed some scenes for Lord of the Rings and years later they filmed scenes for the Hobbit Trilogy. About fourteen minutes of film shot in Hobbiton made it into the trilogy. The sets were torn down after filming, but Peter Jackson and the owners of the property rebuilt the movie set as a tourist attraction. Precovid, they drew 3,000 visitors a day during the summer. At $55 US per adult, they are doing well.

Our guide (despite Dad jokes that rivaled those of Domenico Aronica in Palermo) was very good. He often pointed out how they emphasized the difference in scale of the actors: a small house to make the wizard look big, and a big house to make the hobbits look small. The attention to detail on the set was incredible. For example, for two weeks before filming someone hung laundry behind the hobbit houses every morning and took it down every night. This was so the grass would look like someone actually walked over it daily. Yeah, we need to see the films again.

Matamata

We got on the road to Hobbiton early and decided to stop on the way for a few minutes in Matamata. Our tour book said the town has adopted Hobbiton as part of its image. But only the visitor information center seems to have embraced this.

Hobbiton

To and Fro from the Shire

Flat Whites

My cousin Adele has mentioned flat whites many times. Robert was a little concerned because this was a new one to him. Italy does not have flat whites. But he has discovered them and drunk many in New Zealand. Turns out that Kiwis have drawn a fine line between a flat white and a cafe latte. According to Wikipedia (and who is Robert to argue), the milk in a flat white is frothed and foamy as it would be for a latte, but is held back about 20mm in the micro foam, creating a concave meniscus (look it up). Although the depth of foam varies among regions, the trick is to do it just right so the crema of the espresso is coaxed into the foam creating an uniform dark brown color across the top of the beverage. Talk about micro managing baristas! Flat whites probably originated in Australia in the mid 1960s. Of course, Kiwis beg to differ.

Food and Some Beer

Next Stop—Whangārei