All that glisters is not gold

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Days 129 continued to 136 of 165

This was going to be 'All that glitters is not gold...' until Pip pointed out that the correct word, in the original, is glisters. ?

So after Paul's casting we spent the rest of that day in Rotorua and nearby - local, free park where we used the natural hot water spa to soak our feet, a walk through the delightful Government Gardens and a look at the outside of the museum, sadly closed for earthquake strengthening. That evening was the weekly street market and for once we were spoilt for choice when it came to eating. After Paul's paella and Pip's Chinese vermicelli noodles it was only then that we discovered the Japanese tempura fish stall and the stall selling battered, deep fried potato spirals - sure these would go down a bomb at festivals back home.

A problem with Rotorua's attractions is that there is an awful lot of doubling up with several geo-thermal and many Maori cultural options, sometimes combined. After a lot of checking through TripAdvisor we settled on Wai-O-Tapu for the geo and Whakarewarewa for the Maori. WAT is full of fuming fumaroles, collapsed craters, stinking sulphour, and also has access to the Lady Knox Geyser which erupts every day, on the button at 10.18am.

It does this so accurately because at 10.15am someone pours in a bag of surfactant , this lessens the surface tension and it bubbles then blows. It would blow without but unpredictably and with a larger time gap.

One of the craters is so large and has its own warm ecosystem that swallows, starlings and mynahs nest in holes in the walls and the heat from below incubates the eggs.

At Whak.... we were toured around the village by a lady who can trace her ancestors back to original guides when tours started back in the mid 1800s. On the way we munched on sweetcorn which had been cooked by immersion in one of the boiling pools which are scattered through this Maori village. One of the traditions is that of 'penny divers' beneath the bridge. Before the bridge was built in 1885 tourists were carried across the river piggyback by men. Since the bridge generations of local village children have swum beneath the bridge to collect 'pennies', though those pennies are now 'gold coins' which means $1 or 2 (50p and £1 roughly). They can 'earn' a good £100 for a day's swimming. But shouldn't they have been in school though?!

After the tour we watched a cultural performance of the Haka, singing, dancing, poi ball swinging, stick dancing. At times we felt this was morris dancing relocated!

Most of our NZ 'must dos' were its natural landscape but there was one definitive man made that we had to see - Hobbiton, the film set originally built for the Lord of the Rings films, and then refurbished for the Hobbit films.

The original Hobbiton, as visited by Simon during his gap year, was a temporary affair, built of polystyrene, plywood and false frontages. And as such it was somewhat run down when he visited. When it needed redoing for the Hobbit the farmer whos land it was on asked Peter Jackson to build from permanent materials so that the set could be properly used as a tourist attraction. And it's delightful. You have a guided tour, taking about 2 hours including a drink in the Green Dragon Inn. Our guide was Todd.....from Yorkshire, a gap year student due to go back to Manchester to study history. As we started the tour Todd asked the group, about 40 of us, how many had seen the films. Almost all, except a couple - one of whom was Pip - put their hand up. When asking who had read the books barely a third raised a hand.

The stories associated with LotR and Hobbit filming are legendary - Peter Jackson is an ultimate perfectionist. So a list of tales:-

The site, chosen after aerial reconnaissance, was chosen because of its quintessentially English look, and no pylons.

He asked the NZ govt for some funding. They had no spare money, but gave him the NZ army to build the 2km access road needed to get to the set.

They were then used as extras playing Orcs, but had to have their fighting toned down as they were too fierce.

These army guys, talking in the local pub, we're the ones who broke the secrecy about the filming.

The site was built months before filming so it could mature naturally.

The Hobbit holes are just fronts, there is only 1 metre or so behind them.

The varying sizes are part of the optical illusion - smaller doors for behind Gandalf so he looks bigger, bigger ones for behind the hobbit.

Each hobbit had a trade reflected in what was outside the door eg smoking fish, beehive, cheese...

The moss on fences....is made from yoghurt, wood chip, paint and glue and is rock hard.

The Dell, about 1/2 acre, was in film for 10 seconds.

5 new doors and all their surroundings and setting were built for the Hobbit, and were in the 3 films for just 5 seconds.

The man made pond attracted frogs, so they had a frog wrangler to remove these as the croaking could be heard over the actors.

For authenticity PJ had someone walk to and from washing lines daily for months to give a natural path.

The oak tree above Bag End was originally a real one, chopped down and imported and fitted with hinged branches so the cutting down scenes could be filmed from different angles.

The replacement, for the Hobbit films, was a steel artificial one built to look like the original would have been if 60 years younger.

A few days before filming PJ decided the colour of the artificial leaves wasn't right and had the many thousands of them - 376,000 we have read - already individually wired to the tree, repainted in-situ.

In the book it refers to plum trees. But their scale was wrong so they planted apple and pear trees and took the fruit off (though we're sure the leaves would then have been wrong).

Despite that attention to detail there were still mistakes, Gandalf with a watch, Orcs in Nike trainers, and birds flying backwards as they had to film the sunset scene in reverse as Bag End faced sunrise not sunset.

By the end of the tour even Pip, who fell asleep barely an hour into the first film, declared that she had been enchanted by and enjoyed the tour. That, plus the general scenery in NZ, has us planning a LotR and Hobbit film viewing weekend when home, though we will need a lot of popcorn as Paul is insisting on the extended versions!

The next day it was back to au naturel as we headed for the Waitomo Glowworm Caves. Glowworm are actually the larva stage of Arachnocampa Luminosa, living for 9 months. They emit light due to bioluminescence attracting insects to the sticky lines they hang below. The caves provide the correct habitat they need, and in the caves they line the ceilings in their many thousands. The tour firstly takes us through some reasonably nice caves and formations before we board a boat for a hand pulled water trip below the glowworms. It was magical, but all too brief - about 5 minutes under the twinkling glowworms themselves.

On our way up to the Bay of Islands, at a planned overnight stop just south of Auckland, we met with a manager from the bungy company where Paul had his accident. It is all properly reported to the external H&S authorities and they were keen to discuss the accident and explore improvements to the jump methodology.

We are now in the Bay of Islands, up in the north above Auckland.

We are across an inlet from Russell, where the first european settlement was, and next to Waitangi which is regarded as the birthplace of New Zealand, and we have spent time at both.

At Waitangi a pivotal treaty was signed between the representative of Queen Victoria and a number of Maori chiefs. As such it could be regarded as the most important historical site in NZ, akin to Runnymede in the UK. However, there was an original version written in English, and a translated version written in Maori (which had only existed as a written language for about 20 years). Unfortunately, in the translation process, the revd doing the translation used Maori words that he felt were more aligned to Maori customs and expectations, and therein lay large problems eg English version based on English understanding of land ownership, but land ownership not a concept in Maori just use of its resources; English version concept of being governed by English and their justice, Maoris thought that would just be governing the immigrants. And therein lies over 150 years of discontent and disputes. There is now a tribunal set up to review claimed cases of misappropriation dating back to 1840, and significant settlements have been made.

One of the reasons the Maoris originally asked for help, leading to the treaty, was because of Kororareka - now Russell - which was the South Pacific's principal whaling port. Full of sailors, bums, escaped convicts from Oz and all the licentious behaviour you would associate with such a place in the early 1800s, it was known as 'the hell hole of the pacific'. In Russell is NZ's first licensed hotel, The Duke of Marlborough. The staff t-shirts proudly proclaim 'Refreshing rascals and reprobates since 1827'!

They now prefer to sell themselves as Romantic Russell.

Other than that we enjoyed a boat trip around the bay with commentary and some trips out to local scenery and sights. On the Bay trip at a lighthouse station above a steep slope up from the water's edge we were told of a horse, Toby, who's job was to turn the winch to haul goods up to the lighthouse. However Toby had some braincells and, according to the commentary, learnt to 'bog off into the hills for several days' when he heard the supply ship coming. We also got to spend time along a pod of dolphins and see the spot Captain Cook first landed in NZ.

And we also went to the toilet. Specifically, to Kawakawa, to see the Hundertwasser toilet. Hundertwasser was an Austrian, born 1928, lived in NZ from early 1970s. He was an internationally regarded architect and ecologist who was commissioned to design and build these in 1997.

And it's been warm and sunny all week at last.

Tomorrow we backtrack to Auckland and on Tuesday fly to Hawaii, for 17 days. It's a bugger that Paul can't bodyboard whilst there!

Written, for once, in full sunshine overlooking the delightful Bay of Islands.

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