Noon Report:

• Position: S 36º 50′ – E 174º 46′
• Speed: Moored
• Course: Moored

So this is life in port. The gangway is on Deck 2 so a section of the deck is closed so it was a kind of a ‘yo-yo day’ – around, back, around, back, rinse and repeat. Also, since they weren’t planning on anyone walking the deck they hadn’t assigned anyone to squeegee it off after last night’s torrential rainfall, so there were puddles and small lakes to ford. I think that tomorrow I’ll walk on dry land. I noticed several people doing that this morning.

After breakfast we took some time to conduct a bit of business – call the bank to tell them where to send a 1099, call Social Security (and sit on hold until they hung up), Facetime with daughter Kim to arrange flights for a trip to Oklahoma shortly after we get back.

Then it was time to grab a snack (because NZ is very stringent about what they will allow to leave the ship so we’re eating granola bars here rather than risk them being confiscated), bundle up against inclement weather (Yes, I know, we’re seeing clouds part and patches of blue sky, but you can’t fool us.), and wander off to find our ride to Hobbiton!

Our van arrived right on schedule and we joined another family on the trip to the country. The family consisted of a son who is a Traveling Nurse from North Carolina who, having just finished a contract in Guam brought his mother and sister on a vacation to NZ. They were fun people and along with the great driver we enjoyed our ~2 hr drive.

Arriving at “The Shire’s Rest” (early), we grabbed a bit of lunch:

While our driver scored tickets (for the 1:00 tour – instead of our scheduled 2:30 tour). We were quickly loaded on the bus,

And headed up the road to the site.

About the road. The Hobbiton site was the last location to be identified for the LOTR trilogy. Peter Jackson knew exactly what his vision was for the location but they had to do quite a bit of searching to find a match. They found it in a farmer’s sheep pasture and negotiated for the use of the land. The problem was that the site was some distance from the highway so a road would need to be built to move all the equipment and such. This wasn’t in the budget, so Jackson called his friend the Prime Minister. She responded that she couldn’t help him with additional funding, but she did have this army that wasn’t otherwise engaged. Could they build the road? And as a reward for building the road the soldiers were given parts as extras. They are the Uruk-Hai in the attack on Helms Deep. Fortunately we didn’t have to face them on our ride out to the site. We did, however have to stop several times for sheep who these days own the road.

Arriving at the site their guide took us on a walking tour thru the site. She was a wealth of information pointing out scenes where specific shots were used and telling stories about events during production.

Here are a few photos. I will publish another post of most of the rest of our photos for those who want to see more.

One more Hobbiton story. In photo 1 above you see, at the top of the photo, Bag End – Bilbo and Frodo’s hole. Above that you see a tree. That is the only fake tree in the whole site. It has a metal frame and plastic bark and leaves. Shortly before shooting it was determined that the leaves were the wrong shade for a (supposedly) British location. So they brought in cranes and people spray painted each individual leaf.

I lied. There’s still one more Hobbiton story. When the location was set for the filming of the trilogy it was constructed (as film sets are) of plywood, cardboard, foam blocks, and such. Following filming it was just left to deteriorate. Eventually word got around where this site is and people started coming to see the site – even though the structures were falling into disrepair. Once the films were released these visits increased. Finally the farmer called a family meeting to discuss how to stop all these people tromping across his land. His eldest son suggested that there was a potential income stream, so he was given permission to buy a van and advertise. The ads clearly disclosed the dilapidated state of the construction but soon one van became multiple vans, then a bus, then multiple busses.

Then Jackson began to plan for the Hobbit. He called the farmer again. Sure, he could use the site. However, this time could he make the construction permanent? So Jackson brought in professional designers and builders and the result is that today the site looks much the same as it does in the movies.

We arrived back at the ship in time to drop our stuff and get down to the Theatre to get seats for the 6:30 show:

The company of Maori performers gave a great short program highlighting several types of performance:

Following dinner we returned to the Theatre for a showing of Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Who says this cruise is for terminally old people! (Although I’d guess most in the audience knew Stan Lee ‘back when…’)

It was a long, but satisfying day and we were glad to call it done. Tomorrow we have nothing scheduled so we plan to sleep in followed by little shopping, a little sightseeing, maybe a museum.

Till then, Tah, R