New Zealand: 100% pure fun
Composed of North and South Islands, New Zealand has some of the most beautiful, rugged landscapes and mountain ranges in the world. It is an outdoor playground for the adventurous.
One Sunday afternoon in September 1998, a New Line Cinema exec knocked on the door of a farmhouse in Matamata, 175 kilometers from Auckland. The owner, Ian Alexander Sr., answered the door reluctantly. The gentleman from Hollywood told him he wanted to discuss the possibility of using the Alexander cattle and sheep farm for a movie.
Mr. Alexander replied, “Can you come back later, mate? I’m too busy watching rugby.”
And he did.
Henry Horne, sales manager of Hobbiton Movie Set, is laughing when he tells us this story. “That was a great way to start a relationship, eh?”
Well, it was. Everyone knows better than to get between a Kiwi and a rugby match (as it happens, it was Waikato vs. Auckland for the national championship). Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit director Peter Jackson — born in New Zealand capital Wellington — certainly knew this as he scouted locations for JRR Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
Until he signed a confidentiality clause, Alexander didn’t know what movie they were going to shoot on his farm — or that they had a NZ$350 million budget. He had no idea who Tolkien was — much less Peter Jackson.
And so the books loved by generations of readers became film legend, shot entirely in New Zealand’s North and South Islands, from up in Waikato and down to Queenstown, at one time nine units filming simultaneously in the rugged landscapes and at sound studios in Wellington.
Here, in Matamata, one of the richest agricultural and pastoral regions of the country, lies the heart of Middle Earth: the Shire, home of the Hobbits.
“For the time will soon come when Hobbits will shape the fortunes of all,” says Galadriel in The Fellowship of the Ring.
This has certainly been the case for the 250-acre farm of the Alexander family. While Peter Jackson and his cinematographers may have fallen in love with the idyllic, rolling terrain of the farm, Hollywood still came with its idiosyncrasies. Even though the farm had 12,000 sheep, not a single one was used. Instead, they brought their own sheep and 34 other species of animals.
“Not one of ours was apparently good enough for the camera, they just didn’t have the right look,” says Henry.
The terrain, however, was perfect for the Shire and the Hobbit Holes or underground homes found on hillsides. In Hobbiton Movie Set, which was rebuilt in 2009 for the filming of The Hobbit trilogy, the Hobbit architecture (round doors and windows with grass roofs) makes use of eye trickery. The houses are scaled differently, from 35 to 100 percent, depending on how small they wanted the Hobbits to appear or how big they wanted the wizard Gandalf to tower over them.
Even if you are not a hardcore Tolkien fan and the first time you heard of the Hobbits was through the movies, there is a moment of amazement when you see a Hobbit house for the first time — or a few of the 40-plus houses sitting side by side as you are standing on top of a hill and looking down on the farm. (Would you believe that 40 percent of those who visit Hobbiton haven’t read any of the books or seen the movies?)
You feel like you are part of the movies which more than a decade ago had the most anticipated premieres around the world. Indeed, you are in a movie set, a living one that is maintained all year round — the grass is real, it grows, it needs to be cut and in certain foot paths need to be replaced every two to four weeks especially during high tourist season (December to April); the houses or at least their facades are real (they are empty and shallow inside, all interior shots were filmed in Wellington) and need repainting once in a while.
But there is a moment when for me reality becomes literally small. We are walking on a narrow path and Henry tells us this is where Gandalf rides in with his cart and sets off the first of his fireworks for the children when he arrives at the Shire. It certainly looked bigger in the movie. Before that scene, Frodo Baggins had been reading under a tree when he hears the wizard singing in the distance, “Down from the door where it began, now far ahead the road has gone…”
Frodo runs through the Shire and comes to a stop on top of a hill and after chiding Gandalf that he’s late, he jumps into the wizard’s arms and says, “It’s wonderful to see you, Gandalf!”
From city lights to glowworms
We are repeatedly told this fact throughout the familiarization tour: New Zealand has only 4.5 million people. To someone who is living in, say, tiny Singapore, this number is no big deal. But to us Filipinos who live with the density of a runaway population, it is an unbelievable statistic.
At the Sky Tower, 51 floors above ground, we are looking at the skyline of Auckland and I am suddenly struck by the realization that there are hardly high-rise buildings. I ask Stephen Susabda, general manager for Asia of Pacific Destinationz, which organized this fam tour of media and travel executives, if there is a height limitation in Auckland. He says no.
So why are there no towering skyscrapers? “Because there isn’t a need for them.”
That’s what the numbers mean for a city that has so much room to breathe — lots of parks, open spaces by lakes and bay, traffic yes but not megacity proportion.
There are only 4.5 million Kiwis and NZ is roughly the size of the Philippines, which has 92 million people. Auckland, its biggest city, has only 1.5 million people or a third of NZ’s population; Metro Manila alone, about two-thirds the size of Auckland, has about 15 million people.
New Zealand, however, has between 50 and 60 million sheep, and 5.5 million milking cows. You know, just to even things out a little.
Some of the richest people here, according to Linsey our coach driver, are farmers living on hundreds of acres of farmlands and driving expensive cars — they’re also some of the most hardworking people on the land.
With a country so dependent on agriculture and farms, New Zealand has some of the strictest customs and importation laws “because disease from abroad could wipe us out just like that.”
Composed of North and South Islands, New Zealand has some of the most beautiful, rugged landscapes and mountain ranges in the world. No wonder its long-standing tourism campaign is “100% Pure.” It is an outdoor playground for the adventurous, whether it’s bungee jumping or skydiving in the summer, or skiing in the winter, and mountain climbing all year round.
North Island has the bigger Maori population and it is almost unbelievable that over half a century ago Maori culture was on the brink of extinction — the language, the traditions, the arts and crafts. Today, the New Zealand Maori Arts and Crafts Institute is keeping this indigenous culture alive and sharing it with visitors.
We have a Hangi feast (where the meats are slow-cooked in stone pits) at Te Puia in Rotorua after a show that includes the haka or ancestral Maori war cry (if you’ve ever seen the rugby team All Blacks, that’s the haka they do before every match).
It is raining so we see can’t see the famous Pohutu Geyser or the bubbling mud pools in Te Whakarewarewa thermal valley but our guide Sean explains to us that the Maoris have used this area for 700 years and today’s guides continue to “respect the interconnectedness of life in the Maori world.”
What we do see the following day is another natural wonder — this time in the form of thousands of glowworms in Waitomo Caves. Glowworms are luminous insects that emit light continuously or in prolonged glows (as opposed to fireflies which do it in brief flashes) and we go down into the caves for this.
The opening is tight but pretty soon we are in a cavernous space that is 14 meters high. Our Maori guide starts to sing a Maori love song and her voice sounds clear and melancholic in this cave.
Then we get on a boat and she steers it through a line that winds through caves (the water is not very deep but it is cold). Our guide says many of the people working here are direct descendants of the Maori chief who originally explored the limestone caves.
And then there they are: thousands — seemingly millions — of glowworms that are lighting up the cave ceilings.
We are floating on an underground river surrounded by limestone but, incredibly, it feels like I am looking up at the night skies exploding with a million stars.
Queenstown & south island adventures
The resort town Queenstown and its surroundings have the most beautiful, serene landscapes and mirror lakes in New Zealand but it wouldn’t be very Kiwi if they just pointed them out to you from the comfort of a tour bus.
No, they will make an adventure out of everything. Queenstown boasts more than 200 activities including skiing, snowboarding, jetboating, whitewater rafting, mountain biking, skateboarding and skydiving among others.
Queenstown prospered in the 1860s with the gold rush and today is one of the most expensive cities in New Zealand. Instead of just driving through historic Arrowtown, we do it via a safari — on SUVs. Our driver Flip steers us through shallow rivers and rough terrains showing us the breathtaking Remarkables.
I don’t quite catch the how she says it and I ask her, “Yes, but what are the mountains called?”
“The Remarkables,” she repeats.
“Oh, I thought you were describing them.”
If you’ve ever been dune bashing in Dubai, the safari is something like that, except rougher and with infinitely better views — of rivers and mountains.
After a particularly scream-inducing drive through a rushing river, I tell Flip, “There is a much milder way to get to Arrowtown, isn’t there? I mean, like through roads?” She laughs and shrugs, as if to say, “Hey, you’re in Queenstown now.”
It is the same at Shotover River Canyons in Otago region. This place also produced gold in 1862. The 75-kilometer river is calm in some parts, fast flowing in other parts and with numerous rapids. No, we don’t do whitewater rafting (a popular activity here). Instead we do the Shotover Jet, which is worse — which means it is better.
Jet boating was originally invented in New Zealand. Our driver/pilot Dean explains that the “jet boat draws water from the bottom, which is then driven out through a nozzle at the rear with great force. By turning the nozzle the boat also changes direction.”
Dean drove the jet boat for Prince William when he and the Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton visited Queenstown.
It is not a boat ride. It is more like an amusement park ride. When Dean lifts his finger and makes a circle in the air, our boat was going to do a 360 at top speed; other times he would deliberately drive us close to the limestone cliffs and — within inches of slamming against the cliff — he would turn it to safety.
In other words, the screaming on the jet is only surpassed by a sense of relief once it gets calm again.
In Queenstown, you realize soon enough that this is the Kiwi way — everything is a great adventure. That’s what nature is here for.
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Pacific Destinationz, through Destinations Unlimited in the Philippines (896-4811, www.destinatonsunli.com), is offering several types of packages to New Zealand’s North and South Islands. Packages start at US$1,186 on a twin-sharing basis for seven days/six nights, excluding international and domestic airfare. There is also a North Island/Hobbiton package (five days and four nights) that start at $896 on a twin-sharing basis excluding airfare, and a South Island/Spectacular Landscapes package (seven days and six nights) that starts at $1,080.
You may also inquire at SIA Holidays (753-5151), Rakso Travel (812-9667), Travel Specialist Ventures (928-7487), Trends Travelmart (478-5401), Interlink (524-0016), Allpoints Travel (410-1527), Swire Travel (817-1082), Citimiles Travel (523-2881), Corporate International Travel (631-6541), The Marvels of Travel (842-7548), Best Wing Travel (Cavite) (425-4203) and Ecozone Travel (Pampanga) (045-887-0332).
