Denny and Debbie's Little Big Adventure

Rotorua Day 2 – Hobbiton

On a bus from Rotorua, there sat a would be Hobbit, she did not have curly hair but made up for it with her love for mushrooms and her hairy feet.

Honestly booking this trip almost made me cry in of itself and there was definitely some tears as we left, fortunately I do the majority of the filming so I chose not to record that moment for prosperity. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The morning was misty like those mountains you’ve heard of. The journey was about an hour long, travelling along the road palpable excitement growing, David and I quietly humming the soundtrack at the back of the bus.

We arrive at the Shire’s Rest a conveniently placed gift shop and cafe that is surprisingly and perhaps a little disappointingly tasteful. Theres a little too much hobbit franchise but aside from that its a quaint little shop with less merch than the amount of treasure a hobbit could bring back from a dragon based quest.

Our little tour group is little more than fellowship sized and a little less than a dwarf and burglar mission group. But before we’ve left the shop it becomes evident that we are the keenest Tooks of the group. One of our number, a German girl has gone up to the counter and asks what is The Hobbit. She gets the answer that its a prequel to Lord of the Rings. Ahh yes, and whats the Lord of the Rings. It transpires the only reason she’s visiting Hobbiton is her parents (who are big fans) have booked her a ticket as a surprise, and she’s now here on her on with no clue whats going on. Just talk of hobbits, dwarves and elves. I’d have more sympathy if her first words to describe Hobbiton weren’t its cute.

The bus descends into the valley and our tour guide says that we can get our first view of Hobbiton but the mist is against us. It’s like the bit in Jurassic Park where they can’t see any dinosaurs. Off the bus and round the corner we see our first hobbit-holes. This is magic. Traipsing through the Shire, a world created on pages and fulfilled by Peter Jackson with the help of the awe inspiring New Zealand landscape.

The hobbits have their washing out though there’s little chance of them drying in this weather. We find out that when they were shooting the films someone was employed to walk out every morning and hang them up and return them in the evening to create the natural pathways that the hobbits would have used in their daily chores. These ones however stay out for a couple of weeks before being replaced, thats some dirty hobbits.

Detail is in every blade of grass and moment. From the apple trees masquerading as plum trees to stay true to the book and the artificial tree that make a perfect world from Tolkein’s pages.

Our nerdiness stands out by a mile. As a result I’m volunteered into recreating a scene from the hobbit films and running off on an adventure. Despite my antipathy for the inaccurate creations I can’t resist it.

The smoke that rises from the chimneys keeps the fervent hope alive in me that at any moment I’ll stumble into a hobbit or a wizard. But we do get to step inside a hobbit hole. No spoilers but theres still no hobbits, no rings and no hope of a second breakfast.

Reaching Bag End feels like I must be home now, like returning to an old friend’s house its so familiar to me. The door stands ajar almost an invitation to enter, except for the no admittance sign and as we aren’t on party business we head on down the hill towards The Green Dragon. For a pint of the only brew (for the brave and true). Yes they come in pints, and as part of the tour.

We sit in the pub looking out over Hobbiton as the mist begins to finally lift. Then we get carried away by our own geekiness and recreate scenes, which didn’t even take place in that pub, but we are on The Hobbit’s film set so there’s no real need for total accuracy…

Back on the bus and the farewell films pipe out the final moments from some of the films accompanied by the emotive and brilliant soundtrack. Driven out of Hobbiton and away I wipe away a few tears at the end of such an incredible, once in a lifetime, experience.

All I want to do now is go home and watch the films or go back to Hobbiton.

Instead we walk around the lakeside in Rotorua, which is beautiful as the day has cleared and blossomed into a glorious and warm day. Finally heading back to the house through the lovely Redwoods, where every step is opportunity to quote Lord of the Rings. Poor David.

Back at the house and tears could spring forth again as it turns out Netflix in New Zealand doesn’t have Lord of the Rings, just Harry Potter. Take me back to The Shire now.

Rotorua Day 1 – Exploring the Town

Today is our first day in Rotorua. We’re staying with a friend of my (David) Dad. I’d like to really briefly touch on this.

Picture the scene, its 1998. Everyone is walking round, desperately looking for some way to ignore everyone around them because phones haven’t been invented, and you didn’t all used to talk to each other, you liars, I’m sorry I’d rather text my pals then listen to you talk about how your lives were a) worse but also, literally entirely counterintuitively b) better.

Anyway, it’s 1998 and cultural low points like the Spice Girls and Friends existed. My Dad is playing cricket and at this stage he’s probably still got that awful barnet that he had around that time. I’m cruising around the boundary living life to the absolute max, aged 3. On my Dad’s team is Crispian Stewart, who has come all the way from New Zealand to play cricket. I’d like to think if you told him that 20 years later that 3 year old would come and stay at his house in New Zealand, he’d probably laugh at my Dad’s ridiculous hair cut because it was so bad he’d not be listening to the question, only laughing.

The sheer randomness of how your past interactions shape moments in your future is amazing. Trying to think about meeting a toddler now and then in 20 years later when I’m still living at home because of house prices and having that now adult come and stay, its mad.

Leanne draws us a map of how to walk into town and we gainfully follow it. It takes us through a geothermal walkway area, which smells. It’s that eggy Sulphur smell. Like at school when someone set off a stink bomb. Pongy. Its beautiful though. Real moment of, oh yeah we’re miles away from the UK in a place where there’s volcanoes and stuff.

Once we’re in Rotorua’s town centre, we walk to the park, where there’s more geothermal activity to look at. They have a public foot bath which is heated, volcano heated, and we dip our toesys in, chilling out for 20 minutes, chatting away. We’re both a bit knackered, still not being effected by jet-lag but also being mysteriously tired most of the day. We decide to pick up some lunch and walk back.

On the way back, we nip into the Hobbiton shop and book our tour. Tilly is super excited and its amazing being in the presence of someone when they’re really stoked and you love them and love seeing them all hyped. I’m also hyped because I love LOTR too but I’m definitely getting second hand high from Tilly’s level of buzz.

At the house, we eat, read and then attend the youngest daughter of the households basketball match. My gosh I got so into it. They won too, little rascals. We head back to the house, glorious in our victory and head to bed.

Auckland Day 4 Devonport and Traveling to Rotorua

The day started with no tea. The new hostel we are staying in had no endless supply of tea that our first place had and which we had become accustomed to. So the day started poorly and as we left the hostel it rained continuously. The main upside of this morning is that the way to Devonport is all downhill which in Auckland is a blessing, although its saving the uphill for later, hopefully I’ll have had tea by then!

We stop for tea, end of day.

Then we carry on down to the ferry at which point a storm whips up around the harbour, the boats tilt, the plants fall horizontally in the wind and the rain strikes every surface it can. To those a little less nautically inclined it felt quite off putting but as this was a must see recommendation we stuck determinedly to our course, which worked well as the weather eased as we stepped onboard, after a short slightly choppy ride we arrive in Devonport, I’m feeling a little seasick but thats owed more to my gratuitous cookie eating than the journey.

The weather lifts even further as we walk along the parade, we shed our cagoules and head towards North Head. As we are finding frequently throughout this trip we seem to have the place to ourselves. There are several different paths around North Head all of which we end up merging and meandering along and enjoying brilliant views of Auckland from our natural lookout. My stomach churns again at the idea of this place being used as a military base, as it was during the World Wars. It seems so peaceful and sleepy now, that even the cafe is closed.

Ending up down on Cheltenham Beach which is beautiful and sunny we decided to bring some food back here for lunch.

I paddled a little in the Pacific Ocean, and even tried to convince David it wasn’t super cold. It was. He sensed the lie and didn’t take the risk.

Our final destination was up Mount Victoria. We had spotted the summit in the distance from the Skytower and other spots in Auckland. We wound our way around the hill and didn’t seem to gain any altitude until abandoning the path we staggered up and up, greeted at the top by the sight of a couple furiously snogging and a multitude of manmade mushrooms.

We trip back down the hill having seen the ferry coming back in the distance and once back in Auckland we make our way steadily up the hill to the hostel where we wait for the English girls chips, spring rolls and sausage rolls to cook before our pizzas are finally granted oven space. We fall asleep again before nine. Bliss.

Auckland Day 3 – Mount Eden

You don’t think jet lag is going to effect you, then you’re in bed at 7:30PM on a Saturday night and you think to yourself, this isn’t jet lag, this is a normal decision for a very tired adult that’s just had a long flight and is adjusting.

I did the rational thing in that situation, set my alarm for 4:15AM, wake up and watch the Liverpool match. They won. The trip can continue being fun.

Today we’re checking out of hostel number 1. The kitchen talk of hostel number 1 laments that hostel number 2 makes hostel number 1 look like that one more wealthy kid in your friend groups house that has all the brand name crisps. Words to describe hostel number 2 used by some people in hostel number 1 “Dirty” “A party hostel” “its good that you’re only staying a couple of nights”. Think about Tilly and I. Think about the term “Party hostel”. Think about Tilly and I. In a party hostel. I can’t stress this enough when I say that unless your idea of a party is when you sit around and read some really good books and then talk to each other about how good those books are, then I do not want to be involved.

We’ve got time to chill out after we pack our stuff and clean our room. We relax in the kitchen and lounge area of the hostel, silently dreading, yet outwardly feigning optimism whilst waiting to move to hostel 2.

It’s a 20 minute walk to hostel number 2. Most of this walk was uphill and with a 20 kilo backpack on. It was not pleasant, unless you’re one of those personality vacuums that enjoys self inflicted stamina based pain challenges (like me considering I’m going into marathon training when I get home).

I wouldn’t want to indulge in hyperbole here but as we arrive at Hostel number 2, we see one of our soon to be fellow residents, he looks, not hyperbolising, worse than people I’ve seen carried into the back of an ambulance at a music festival, and not just because it was insanely hot at Glasto this year and he didn’t have enough water.

Everyone else looks a little less battered but fairly blonked. We check in our discover our room has a flashing light that DOES. NOT. STOP. FLASHING. It’s giving Tilly, who is already feeling ill, migrane vibes and when we mention it to the check in guy, he politely lets us know that it’ll be fixed tomorrow. So we’ve not really got a chill out space, because we don’t want to sit in a room with a light flashing more than your uncle after a pint at a wedding.

Anyway we’ve planned to go up Mount Eden so we do. Its a half an hour walk to the bottom of it and then about 15 minutes to the peak. We’re greeted with picturesque views of Auckland, the most concentrated group of tourists we’ve seen – about 20 – and wind. A chap asks me to take some photos of him and 200 photos later, I think I’ve done an alright job so we part, only for the fella to ask someone else to take some more. SO CHEERS MATE. I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW I TOOK A PHOTO OF CAITLIN PLIMMER’S SOLO PERFORMANCE THAT GOT USED FOR MARKETING AT CHICHESTER UNIVERSITY YOU PICKY TART.

We come back down and actively drag our feet because we don’t want to go back to the acid-house tent at Creamfields that we’ve booked in for the night. Eventually, we pull up back at the hostel with our dinner for the night and I check to see what the price of changing rooms is. Turns out $12 got us two beds in a 6 bed, previously we were in 8, for 2 nights. So not bad. That room also came with two bonus French women that give us good tips on what to do on our trip.

We are to sleep in bunk beds. You know how most top bunks are slightly caged to stop roly poly boys and girls from a midnight fall to the cold floor below? Well mine doesn’t. So I go to sleep that night, slightly pleased with the success of our room move, and clinging desperately to the cage on the other side, hoping not to go splat in the night.

Auckland Day 2 – Sky Tower and Waterfall

You see the title and you think, he’s going to do a TLC reference isn’t he? WELL AM NO. So there.

We woke up Saturday morning and immediately noticed it was a clear day. We’d spoken about wanting to do the sky tower but, given its winter and the weathers very England, we didn’t want to plan it and then get stuck on a day when the visibility is bad. Over breakfast (4 pieces of toast each because we’re absolute goblins) we look at the price and then decide that, hey our Chichester University student cards don’t have expiry dates and they won’t know will they, so we book two student tickets to go up the tower. On a serious note, thank you to the university for not having expiry dates on your student cards, you’re helping many swizz their way across the world.

The Sky Tower is 328 metres tall, it’s the 25th tallest tower in the world. The views of Auckland are brilliant, Auckland is a city bursting out of the green colours of the land.

Back on terrafirma, we have lunch in the hostel and prepare for our walk to Oakley Creek. Its an hour and half to the creek, taking us through residential areas. Something we notice on the walk is, once you’re out of the city, the buildings and streets have a kind of faux-colonialist vibe. They’re not the original era buildings and they’ve clearly been styled on the idea of colonial. Colonial Simulation. Coming to terms with travelling 18,000 Kilometres and yet still having the Queens head on the money has taken awhile.

Oakley creek was gorgeous. It felt like the set of Jurassic Park, ferns aplenty, with the sound of mankind forever humming in the back round.

On the walk back we stop in the Western Springs Park, home of the Speedway. The park is greener than Caroline Lucas. We collect stones and chat to Geese. We see an Elephant and a chicken in a tree. We talk about the future.

Back at the hostel. Tilly’s cold has taken over and we decide not to go to the theatre, choosing instead to get an early nights rest.

Tomorrow we’re checking out of the Attic Backpackers into our first shared dorm experience of the trip. Fingers crossed for QUIET PEOPLE PLEASE.

Getting to New Zealand and Auckland Day 1

46 hours later…

We are starting this journey at 3.50am in sleepy Chichester. It starts with my last morning in my student house and will end arriving in our hostel in New Zealand (with lots of bits in between and 20+ hours in Shanghai Airport).

We’re going on an adventure and I feel quite happy and amiable for four in the morning, as my suitcase rattles noisily through the silent Sussex town.

We get to Gatwick, after check in and a pain free episode through security we get to the posh lounge we’d booked. And boy was it good. I didn’t know I even wanted this kind of luxury, but endless servings of tea and unending amounts of food, my greedy side emerged delighted. The actual lap of luxury and honestly I didn’t know bucks fizz was this good at 8am. So when we emerge from the lounge to actually get on the plane its like we’ve never been in an airport, which in hindsight is a blessing when compared to our endless hours in Shanghai!

The first leg is flying for 10 hours to get us to Shanghai, we got lots of food and David found a new film fave in Lego Movie 2. We get into Shanghai airport for 5.30ish and decide it’s a good idea to sleep on those passably uncomfortable benches. We take watches so one of us sleeps and another guards and even though I had a sweet three hours I admit I did start to drift during my turn to keep guard. The crusade for veggie food through the multitudinous cafes of the airport results in two packs of knock off Pringles, some lemon cakes and 6 doughnuts, Starbucks finally gives us a break and there is a vegetable and cheese croissant thing which is actually very good. We sleep again this time risking it by sleeping at the same time. We get down to the gate for our flight at 10.20 and wait. The flight is supposed to leave at 00.15 and at 23.20 ish people start a unofficial queue. They stay this way as time rolls on and its not looking good for the flight which on the flight board admits to nothing, it’s neither late, or boarding. It just exists. We get to around 0.30am and even the keenest of the queuers is starting to give up. Then in flurry of activity and no explanation the screens change and we board our flight. Where we were automatically checked in at Gatwick they haven’t seated us together but the flight is quite empty and it seems the world and his wife all want to change seats. We were told to swap around after take off, but the same people that created their own organized queue are not sticklers for the rules and as the plane surges up vertically there is a flurry of movement to find the optimum seats accompanied by a torrent of Mandarin informing these seating change rebels to remain seated.

The flight carries on quite nicely and though the food isn’t quite as good and the second lot of movies isn’t as fulfilling its an exciting flight as we get closer and closer to New Zealand. We land and go through customs where we are welcomed by the friendliest reception. Got into shuttle at 5.30 and I really hope I don’t snore as I fell asleep again! Then we checked into our hostel from which we were totally set on leaving to go and grab some food and then ended up in bed and asleep by 8pm. And it was so nice and comfortable and not like an airport bench and with no recurring recorded announcements to watch out on the escalators.

First official day of the adventure:

Our early bedtime meant we were up, out and enjoying the sights. We walked around the city on a set route that helped us map out the sights and get a feel for the city, journeying down to the harbour, through the park and past the war memorial, we also discovered the Winter Gardens which were two beautiful glasshouses and Fernz Fernery. It was lovely finding this beautiful, lush area. All this and it was barely 12. Impressive. Finishing our walk at the sky tower and photobombing two indie films along the way we headed back to the hostel for lunch, I’m slowly realising that I’m using food as a focal point of this writing. After eating we did some editing of the vlogs and headed off to see Auckland at night, having been too tired the previous evening. We found a beautiful walkway called The Lightpath which is a path of lights… Its a path that crosses some of the larger roads and has been installed with strip lights which change colour from bright pinks and deep blues, it also interacts as you walk leading me to create a Harry Potter esque sequence. This path led to the discovery of as I like to call it, Tetris house, it is in fact a hotel where the windows are lit to resemble Tetris, they change every five minutes or so with new colours falling into place, maybe that’s why its a hotel not a house because I imagine the novelty would wear off if viewed every night. We’re back at the hostel and I’m writing this, its already ended up a late night as its currently 9.50pm, hardcore holiday makers!

Here is our first video and photos for you to enjoy!

Speak soon!

Denny and Debbie’s little big adventure

Denny and Debbie are two small knitted dinosaurs that belong to Tilly Ingram and David Doust. They’re (both) in relationships, though we’re not sure if this is accurate to the lifestyle of T-Rex’s, and are out exploring the world. You’ll see video and photo updates of them as they go, all in one place, so you know where and what they’re up to. We hope you enjoy!