Around the world in 108 days

Tauranga, New Zealand – February 22, 2015

As you can see…I am still running a week behind, but we have a couple sea days in route to Sydney, AUS so maybe I can catch up a wee bit

When we arrived in the port for Tauranga, we actually disembarked in the cute village of Mount Maunganui Beach. It is linked by the harbor bridge to Tauranga. It was a Sunday, but the shopkeepers opened just for us. It is named for the inactive volcano, at the head of the harbor. We had booked an excursion of white water rafting, but sadly it was canceled. The reason given was because the area has been so dry ending their summer that the river was low….hmmmm???? We are getting a little suspicious. Instead we walked around the little town and enjoyed the friendly welcoming folks who live there. New Zealand has to be the friendliest country in the world.

That evening we took advantage of a complimentary excursion to Hobbiton. As you probably already know, the Lord of the Rings was filmed in locations all over New Zealand from the mountains around Fijordland on the southwest corner, to the studios in Wellington and outside Tauranga. In September 1998, Sir Peter Jackson “discovered” the Alexander farm during an aerial search for suitable film sites and chose the farm for the Hobbit’s village. Thirty-nine Hobbit holes were created from untreated wood and polystyrene. The oak tree that overlooks Bag End was cut down and transported in. Artificial leavers were brought in from Taiwan and individually wired onto the tree. Since the original construction materials were not meant to last, the structures were rebuilt in 2009 for The Hobbit Trilogy using permanent materials including an artificial tree made out of steel and silicon. This entire reconstruction process took two years. Today the set is maintained to keep the magic of the Shire alive.

It was a really fun evening and a special tribute was done for the 25^th Anniversary World Cruise including a message from Julie Andrews, who christened the Serenity before its maiden voyage, and a laser show projected onto a spray fountain of water in the middle of Hobbiton lake. It was pretty cool.

Hope you enjoy the pictures….the ones after dark are a little harder to see..Sorry.

Cheers!

View from our ship when we pulled into port

Mount Maunganui at the Bay of Plenty, named by Capt. Cook

Our tour guide for Hobbiton. People from the neighboring communities
dressed as Hobbits guided us through the Shire while explaining how the
site was chosen and how the filming was done.