Day 14 (Monday 8th January 24) visits to the areas around Whakapapa Village and Taupo

 After lazy start and a Burger King breakfast (or brunch actually as many now don’t do breakfasts due to egg shortage and price increase since Covid), we headed off to Whakapapa and Iwikau village to take Sky Waka up to the ski slopes at 2080metres. Of course the journey to get to villages took us through a several distinctly different landscapes including Alpine, forests, plains and an almost dry swamp ( think of the dead marshes from LOTR) environment. As we got closer to the turn off to Whakapapa, the landscape became a vast rocky blasted moonscape, that could be liked to some areas of the Granite belt in Queensland but in extreme with remains of lava flows as far as the eye can see. We could almost see the LOTR hobbit characters climbing up through the blasted environment of Mordor from the books and movies.

At the village of Whakapapa we saw the permanently closed Chateau Tongariro. 

Closed due to compulsory earthquake reinforcing requirements needed.  Very costly and no one willing to pay the bill even though it is supposedly heritage listed.

After visiting the excellent Whakapapa iSite, we drove on to Iwakau village where the Sky Waka service takes you on a journey up the northern face of Mt Ruapehu to 2020m, on the Sky Waka gondola. Today the mountain was partially cloudy, but it appeared that weather would only get worse during the rest of the week, so took the trip up. The journey up was enjoyable with clouds covering the last quarter up the Mt Ruapehu. 

We explored around the cafe taking in the landscape, spying the occasional patch of snow through the light cloud. After lunch, the sun burnt through some of the clouds to present to us a truly magnificent landscape. 

We headed back to Turangi to charge up our phones and cameras before heading out to Taupo and Dinner. We stopped along the way to see the lake and visit places of interest sign posted along the way. Once in Taupo we parked along the beach front, took photos and looked around and found food at the Jolly good fellow bar and restaurant . We greatly enjoyed the meal and some cider called Magners Irish cider. Melissa got in some great sunset photos (9ish at night) and then we drove home to our motel. Tonight a local cat played on our front perch, and looks remarkably like Charlotte’s Rick, right down to the mannerisms. 

A great day. 😃

Day 13 (Sunday 7th January 24) Matamata to Hobbiton and onto Taurangi

 8 years in the making, today we finally get to Hobbiton after having to return home early on our last trip without seeing it. Our tickets back in 2015 were not wasted, Peter and Anja kindly purchased them. This time we didn’t bring hobbit outfits just ourselves. 

Our day started with a quick breakfast in Matamata and a visit to the iSite. We had been advised to get to the Shire’s rest early to avoid a possible long car park leading into the entry, so we arrived one and half hours early in time for second breakfast ( drinks) and a visit to the official Shire gift shop. 

ISite Gandalf

Our motel Maple Lodge 

At 11:40am we boarded our bus to begin our adventure. While waiting a private tour group (rich Americans apparently) helicoptered in which made a big entrance and boarded our bus. Once at Hobbiton, the 6 Americans moved off on their private tour. We didn’t care.

Entrance to Hobbiton 

Our guide lead us through Hobbiton seeing all 44 hobbit holes including Bag End.

Bag End

We were informed by our guide that the same hobbit holes have been created in different ratios to allow movie magic in giving the ability to film different ‘sized’ characters in perspective. Hobbiton has recently created and opened two hobbit homes.  These have been kitted out in an authentic way to fit its ‘owner’.  They have been beautifully styled to match descriptions in the movies and books.

 The hobbit hole (Sam’s) we explored was magnificent, We descended down to the party tree clearing to enjoy a drink and lunch.

Lunch was a buffet with a selection of tasty foods to meet the most picky of eaters needs. 

Overall, we were very surprised by the size and detail of Hobbiton. The tour Guides were great and very friendly. For people unable to make steep climbs and descents, the staff will assist with a golf cart. Highly recommend a visit, especially with the new hobbit holes open.

The rest of afternoon we travelled inland to Taurangi and our motel: The Sportsman Lodge. As before we enjoy the scenery of rolling hills, green pastures and lakes. As we approached Taurangi, we saw a great snow capped mountain in the distance. 

Our lodging is a very comfortable cottage with decor of rich timbers popular in the 1970s. We believe it will be a pleasant base for the next few days. For dinner, we settled on “Fish and chips” after a very quick explore of the town centre. After dinner we strolled on a bush track that ran along side a river. We returned to our cottage to finish the day with this blog and a couple glasses of New Zealand wine.

The Sportsman Lodge 

Day 12 (Saturday 6th January 24) Auckland and road trip to Matamata via Hobbiton.

 Today we disembarked in Auckland from the Royal Princess. It started with a room service breakfast ( it sounds grand but the coffee is American style drip, which is poor substitute for brewed coffee. )

Cruise terminal and Hilton Hotel 

Regardless, it did the job of starting the day as we did a final check of the mini-suite. The most important part was saying farewell to our room steward Vadym. He was a credit to ship, friendly, professional and very helpful to us during our stay abroad. Our exit from the ship was smooth and took probably an hour from our cabin to the road via security, customs and bio-security. The nicest part is the terminal is modern and well set out leading directly into Auckland. The terminal also has a Hilton Hotel and apartments above it which was interesting for us and hotel guests as we docked.

We enjoyed our cruise with Princess. We saw New Zealand from a different perspective and did tours that enriched our understanding of the country and its people as well as sea animal & birdlife. Like most cruise lines we have used, it did some things very well like logistical organisation, crew professionalism, tours and general look and feel of the ship, while other areas needed improvement. Nothing was a fail, just not as good in certain categories as other lines we have enjoyed. We found tours to be generally above average to excellent but as often too expensive for what you get. It really depended on third party tour company that Princess engaged. Out of two cruises with Princess, we have 3 out of 5 tours to be excellent. Probably the only other item specific to the Royal Princess was the lack major stage shows due the design of its stage. The Acts presented were excellent but not of same size or composition as the Grand Princess.

Once in the city, we stopped to have real coffee and purchase a LOTR guide book for movie locations. The coffee was superb! An Uber followed and half hour later an we arrived at the airport commercial area to pick our Prius hybrid Car. We selected a hybrid because fuel in New Zealand ranges from $2.50 to $3 a litre which can add up quickly on a 7 day road trip. According to Prius range indicator, we have 880 km range before refill but time will tell.

Our car

Journey out of Auckland on the motorway was like travelling on a similar road in Australia, with most drivers doing the right thing with a few fools and lunatics sprinkled in for excitement. ie one two wheeled, temporary New Zealander, learner? bike rider weaving in and out of 100km/hr traffic on a damp greasy road. 😳 Once off the motorway, the roads changed to a gobsmacking beautiful path through rolling hills, pastures of crops and animals, pleasant tree bordered valleys and quiet creeks cutting through the green landscape.

Welcome to  New Zealand and Hobbiton country near the town ship of Matamata. We of course did reconnaissance to The Shire’s rest to check our times for tomorrow’s visit to Hobbiton. After a quick recon we checked into quaint Maple Lodge Motel in Matamata, it is very clean, certainly well maintained 1970’s style motel about 15 minutes from The Shire’s rest.

Main Street Matamata 

ISite Matamata 

Matamata is clean orderly place with many eateries of various types and budgets. Our interaction with the locals was friendly. (They must get sick of tourists asking the same sort of questions). The iSite (information centre) is designed to look like LOTR buildings and is very well done. 

After visiting the Main Street we decided to explore the county side surrounding the town where we found  the Waitere Falls. Very beautiful area! 

For Dinner we chose the pub called “The Merchant of Matamata ”. The food was excellent and so was their own “Good George” beers. An eventful day to be sure!

Day 11 (Friday 5th January 24) Tauranga to Rotorua

 Last full day on the Royal Princess was extremely enjoyable as we did a tour out of Tauranga to Rotorua. Before we left, we decided to try the ship’s main dining room breakfast, it wasn’t terribly exciting. 

Our full day tour covered a lot of ground and the best of what the Bay of Plenty area had to showcase with two of the most popular attractions. We had a personal driver/guide that transported us in a luxury van via Pilot Bay, Marine Parade and Ocean Beach Road en route to Rotorua to visit Te Puia, home of the famous Pohutu Geyser and the Māori Arts & craft Institute. We also saw a park with huge 100yr+ redwood forest with treetop walks, certainly worth a proper visit.

At Te Puia we enjoyed an excellent guided tour around the geothermal valley seeing boiling mud pools, Hot Springs, Geysers, the iconic NZ Kiwi bird and an example of traditional Māori architecture, The Rotowhio marae and wharenui (meeting house). 

Our visit to Te Puia included a traditional kiwi Hangi inspired buffet lunch at the Pataka Kai Café. 

Next, we travelled just down the road to the Polynesian Spa where we immersed ourselves in New Zealand's original geothermal hot pools experience with a soak in the Deluxe Lake View Spa (with towel & lockers provided). It was a great experience, certainly do it again sometime in the future. 

Our journey to Rotorua/return included coastal roads, countryside, forestry and lakes and travels directly through New Zealand's premium kiwifruit growing region. Our driver/guide highlighted the importance of the iconic kiwifruit to New Zealand and point out the orchards with the unusual growing kiwi fruit.

After the tour we head back into the port and township of Tauranga to take a brief exploration. Lovely town full of restaurants, cafes and activities.

Tomorrow we leave the ship so no entertainment tonight as we will be packing to disembark.

Day 10 (Thursday 4th January 24) shows, food and sea

 Today we had a sleep in as the ship was at sea. We enjoyed a late breakfast on Lido deck followed by drinks as the world went by. Nice life. 

Actually most of the day was spent eating, some shopping of non refundable credit, washing the clothes ready for our land trip and transferring our 2000+ photos and videos onto portable wireless hard drive. 

comedian Ventriloquist

The evening was spent enjoying fine French wine at the speciality steak and seafood restaurant. I had the steaks and Melissa enjoyed seafood and lobster tail. 

Our evening finished off with a stage show and comedian Ventriloquist. As usual as selection of cocktails, spirits and wine as night cap. Now, we get ready for our excursion to Tauranga tomorrow. 😀