Wherein I get to indulge my passion for tea

Who knew there is a tea growing estate in New Zealand?  As Arlene and I planned our day trips around our base in Hamilton, we learned there was, indeed, a tea plantation just 4-5 miles outside the city. So there had to be a visit. Zealong Tea Estate offers tours, tea tastings, high tea, a restaurant, and a gift shop.  Since high tea is a bit far off my bariatric diet, we opted for the tour. First off, let me say it is a good thing I’m packing light, or I would be bringing back lots of tea, tea accessories, tea pots, and tea cups!

Tea originates in China, but I didn’t know that of the over 250 species n the genus Camellia, all are poisonous except for Camellia sinensis. So don’t harvest any leaves from your garden variety camellia, please, as I value your friendships!

Founded by Vincent Chan in 1996, the Zealong tea estates started with 130 plants. Vincent had the advice an encouragement of a NZ farmer, Harold Nielsen. Tea’s first history was written by Lu Yu, The Classic of Tea, in the 8th century. Tea was an important trading item long before the British popularized it. So much so that it had it’s own equivalent of the Silk Road - the Tea Horse road. Some pictures from the tour

It is hard to see but in the second collage on the upper right photo, there is a black spot on top of the tea plants. That’s a native NZ bird, the pukeko, which has the territorial nature of an angry goose! This picture deserves a place in my blog because it was the only native animal I got a shot of outside of a zoo!😄

The tea ceremony was fascinating and I’ll demonstrate some of what I learned when I’m back home. Let me simply say that it was enlightening, I learned I like green tea (I still prefer black), and the tea ceremony has lots of stuff I would have brought home, but then I’d need a second tea cart! Our tour guide, Sarah Moss, was our hostess for the tea ceremony, too. We followed it by having a snack at the restaurant. Your mouths should water over the pistachio macrons. 

One last item. Arlene needs to be a PR rep for the various artist journal artists she follows because she made a second convert to artists journals during the tea tour. As she pulled out her travel journal to put in her tea leaves cutting, the journal fell open to some image from our Denmark trip. Our guide, Sarah, oohed, so Arlene started showing it to her, and now Sarah wants to start artists journaling, too! Proof:

Hobbiton, part 2

So, I resisted showing you pictures of all 44 Hobbit holes (because, thankfully, I didn’t take pictures of all 44!), you’ve seen Bag End, the gardens, and even the mailboxes, and might be wondering what else is there?

If there’s going to be a party, we need a party tree. The Party Tree, above,  is real, but the oak tree atop Bag End (center rear below)

is constructed. It’s leaves are silk and were attached one-by-one. If any faded, they were spray painted (would this fall under the job of a set dresser???).

And there has to be a place for half-pints so that Pippin can discover that there are places with pints!

which means there’s a functional Green Dragon

I wondered how the small town of Matamata was reacting to its recent tourism boom, but when I saw the Visitor’s Center (built in 2000), it was clear they have embraced it

One last tidbit. For LotR fans, remember the scene just before the party where Gandalf and Bilbo are sitting in front of Bag End, smoking pipes and watching the sun set?

Well, here’s a bit of NZ slang for you: yeah-nah (i.e., I don’t agree, don’t believe ya). Bag End faces East, not West. They filmed the sunrise and reversed it. Someone will have to explain to me how filmmakers can overlay two sections like that, because I presume they had to superimpose Gandalf and Bilbo over the reversed dawn section, but I can’t imagine how that is accomplished!

Hobbiton !!!!!!!

The tour of the Hobbiton movie set was really great and this will be a largely visual post. First, some background. The first Hobbiton set for LotR was made of non-permanent materials and the grounds were largely retuned to their original state after shooting was finished.  But fans came anyway. So when The Hobbit was planned, Jackson approached the Alexander family about building a more permanent site that could be managed as a tourist destination. The Alexander’s, whose working sheep farm of over 13,000 sheep is at the end of Buckland Road long before Jackson went location seeking for LotR, agreed to the permanent Hobbiton and the re-established venue is built of permanent materials.

What is clear is the loving attention to detail, from mailboxes to birdhouses, to amazing gardens. Tour guides point out memorable scene locations, pass on little tidbits, and graciously take photos for/of you as we walk around. However, because al the internal Hobbit hole scenes were shot on set, none of the homes have interior spaces to explore. But there are plenty of other bits to see.

Down from the Door Where it Began ...

Bag End is situated toward the end of the tour, but since it’s where the story begins ...

Some of the other doors (of the 44 total Hobbit Holes):

Signposts and Notice Boards

One of the touches that bring Hobbiton to life are these items:

And you could make a study of the mailboxes:

 Details like laundry, curtains, occupations, and thatching:

And the gardens!!!

And this is my favorite - it will probably get printed off, framed, and find a home in my office:

It{s midnight, so I’ll post the end of the Hobbiton journey tomorrow. 

Wellington Wrap Up

Been doing a lot so will wrap up Wellington here to try and catch up the posts. BTW, I’m posting more quickly on Instagram if any of you are using that (Eileen102).

I totally geeked out at the WETA studios, where we went on the Studio tour and learned a lot about the creation/creative process. No photography allowed until the end because of rights, etc. but very worth the time. We got to meet Warren Beaton, the genius behind creating stuff, and were able to take photos here. 

These are, from the WTA Cave (gift shop and tour starting point)

It’s a good thing I am traveling light or I would have blown the wad on this item, only $3500 NZD

Next tourism was the Wellington cable car to the Botanical gardens followed by a walk around Wellington Harbour

Public art amid the gardens

Muddy, Arlene, and Serah had a crafternoon at the Gardens. Arlene shared her artist{s journal with Maddy and made a convert of Maddy!

The hill’s you’re eyeing in these next photos did not exist in 1839. They were created by the 1840 earthquake in Wellington, which also changed the shoreline.  In the bottom photo, I’m standing at that 1840 shoreline marker, and just raised the camera to take a shot of the current harbour - which s just behind the building with the red tiled roof. 

A last trip to Te Papa to visit the Maori culture exhibit (no photographs for most of it, but check out the exhibit info).  There was a contemporary marae where photos were permitted o here{s a pic of the explanation of the marae/meeting house 

We left Wellington early Sunday morning for a relaxing train on the Great Northern Explorer to Hamilton.   You travel along the rugged SW coast into the central plains, and get fantastic photo ops 

Next leg: Hobbiton and a tea estate tour. 

Can’t Do This One Justice

I spent two hours at this exhibit in Te Papa and could have spent more than that. Gallipoli:The Scale of Our War takes this debacle from WWI to the human level through the eyes of 8 New Zealanders who served in the campaign. Working with various personal and State archives and WETA Studios, the individuals and the specific battles are detailed. 

WETA produced 9 models at 2.5 times normal size based on photographs of the people portrayed. These three photos are of Lt. Spencer Westmacott, Who was injured on the second day of the first battle, evacuated to Egypt for medical care, and lost his right arm (he’s already been injured in this model). Full scale to give some sense of scale, then a close up of his hand so you can see the detail.

Each model took several workers about 3,500 hours to produce. 

If you could take your eyes off of the models, the floor was mapped with each battle. Each Red Cross represents a New Zealand soldier killed. 

There were three dimensional maps of two or three key battles that were linked to a timeline of the battle, showing the advance and retreat of the NZ/Aussie/British  and Turkish troops throughout the

day:

As you are introduced to each new person, the rotunda that encloses them displays texts and audio from their diaries, letters to/from home, or, in the case of Pvt. Jack Dunn below, transcript of his field court marshal for sleeping on guard duty. Jack caught pneumonia and was sent right back to his post a month later, still not feeling well. He was pardoned because of his previous excellent record and his recent illness, only to die in battle 4 days later.

 The models of the trenches and quarters built into the hillside on the Eastern front showed how different this geography was from the “usual image we have from the Western front and really made a deep impression on me.

I’ll create a second post with more info for anyone who’s interested rather than add to this one. 

On the Road to Wellington

Land of the Long White Cloud. This is the Maori name for New Zealand as it describes what they first sighted as they approached the land in their wakas. We were treated to a similar sight today as we drove southwest to Wellington.



The clouds build up on the leeward side of the mountain ranges and dump their moisture on that side as they try to cross the ridges.
We’re traveling through dairy country and I’m seeing as many cows as sheep. There’s a Norse and Danish settlement strain in this area, with road names like Jens Larson Road, towns like Dannevilke and Norse, and signs can be in Danish



We made a few stops to see little antique shops and it’s lucky for my purse that it’s too expensive to ship things home or I’d be adding to my teapot and teacup collection! We also stopped at a fantastic little chocolate shop where I got a couple of immediate treats and a bar of chocolate to share at work.  Then on to Wellington.