March 1, 2018 – Tauranga, New Zealand

As we head north along the east coast of New Zealand’s North Island, we arrived yesterday afternoon (Feb 28), a day early, in Tauranga. We had to skip Gisborne yesterday, due to unsafe sea conditions for tender boat operations.

The port of Tauranga is actually in the adjoining beach town of Mount Maunganui, about 10 miles away. Both are located on the Bay of Plenty, which received its name from Captain Cook, who sailed into this bay in 1769. Apparently, he found many friendly Maori settlements, and they were willing to give him a plentiful amount of supplies.

Looming close to the ship is the namesake for this community -- Mount Maunganui, a 750-foot tall dormant volcano. When we last visited here five years ago, Jim hiked part way up to a trail that goes around the mountain, and he had a great time. Yesterday there wasn’t time to do that; he left the ship at about 3:00 and walked around town for about an hour, conserving his energy for tomorrow’s trip to Hobbiton.

Crystal Symphony remained in port overnight, and we signed up for a shore excursion for today, March 1st. The tour, “Journey to Middle-Earth: The Hobbiton Movie Set & Farm” left the ship promptly at 8:30 a.m. Our driver/guide, named Murray, was a real comedian, and he kept everybody awake for the 1-hour drive to the site where the Lord of the Rings trilogy (1999) and the Hobbit movies (2011) were filmed.

Murray drove us first through the city of Tauranga -- population of 130,000 and growing (about 2% growth per year). The appeal of Tauranga, in Murray’s opinion, is the climate, and its location on the Bay of Plenty. He told us that many retirees are moving here, joining the large numbers of tourists who are drawn by its beaches and coastal lifestyle. He said that temperatures only rarely go below 3°C (37°F) in the winter or above 27°C (80°F) in summer. The sky was cloudy most of the day today, and we doubt that it ever got over 20°C (68°F).

The countryside we drove through was a beautiful shade of green the whole way. We saw lots of Silver Fern Trees, which is as much a symbol of New Zealand as the Kiwi Bird. Speaking of Kiwis, there are a lot of Kiwi fruit farms here. In fact, according to Murray, 80% of the Kiwi fruit exported from New Zealand comes from the region through which we were driving. Kiwi plants are grown in a similar manner to grapes – on vines. All the orchards we saw were surrounded by very tall hedges, which we assume serve as windbreaks. On the topic of population again, New Zealand has a total population of 4.5 million people. Of that number, 1.5 million live in the greater Auckland metropolitan area. The remainder of the country is sparsely populated.

The Hobbiton movie set was a privately-owned farm before the movies were filmed, and it still is a working farm, owned by a single family. As the story goes, film director Peter Jackson was searching for filming locations from the air in 1998 and selected this spot for Hobbiton. As there were no roads, buildings, or power lines, the location was ideal for the portrayal of Middle-Earth.

When we arrived at Hobbiton, a local guide, Christian, joined us on the coach to escort us to the starting point for our 1½-hour narrated walking tour through the hilly property. He told us that the set was rebuilt and slightly expanded for the Hobbit “prequel” in 2011. There are facades for 44 hobbit “holes” where the hobbit families lived under grass roofs and into the sides of hills (all have small, unfinished, earth-walled interiors). We were very impressed with how authentic the houses looked – they really looked like they had been lived in – as well as the beauty of the lush green natural surroundings, and the amount of work that must be involved to keep the area looking so wonderful – with so many flowering bushes, trees, and vegetable gardens. Christian told us that they have between 1,000 – 3,000 visitors here per day, depending on time of the year and the weather.

Jim must have taken photos of at least half of the 44 Hobbit homes, here are a few of them.

At the end of the walking tour, we enjoyed scones, muffins, and any one of four types of drinks, in the Green Dragon Inn, on property, before visiting the gift shop.

At the end of our drive back to Tauranga, Murray drove us through a nice upscale area in Tauranga (called Bethlehem) which seemed to be primarily for retirees. Then we drove through a nice Maori enclave neighborhood. He stopped the coach on the side of the road and asked one of the local ladies to talk about modern-day life for these indigenous citizens. Finally, back in the seaside community of Mount Maunganui, he drove by the beautiful beach area, which has been voted “Best Beach in New Zealand,” and is often graded as one of the top beaches in the world. Today there was a lot of rough surf.

This was a wonderful day, which we greatly enjoyed. We were very happy that we chose it for our full day in The Bay of Plenty.

Jim & Ginny