Honeymooning in the Land of the Long White Cloud.

[GarrettM]

Hi all.
As I've been here for a while now and learnt a bit about the game of FF travel, I thought I might share a couple of travel experiences the wife and I have enjoyed previously.
First off, our Honeymoon trip to Melbourne and New Zealand in November 2014.
I'll start by saying all flights were booked in Y and were totally routine, so I won't linger on the specifics of them.
Forgive me if I ramble/bore you/show you nothing you've never seen before.

8/11/14 - PER-MEL
JQ961 Y - arrived around 1730.

My first time in Melbourne, which is pretty sad really. We got a taxi easy enough and made our way to our home for the next three nights - which was generously provided by a well-known AFFer - in Southbank.


Decided we'd keep it easy for our first night and found a decent pizza and pasta mix nearby at Soprano's. We were pretty happy.

MrsGM is a bit of a fan of street art and made it clear she wanted to get a look at all the offerings in the CBD. We'd done something similar in Brussels so I was happy enough to give it a shot. It's not really my thing but it's as much about getting your bearings in a knew city as it is anything else.
Can't remember exactly which laneways we went down, but there was plenty to see.


We also saw a rat running around in one of the alleys behind a restaurant, which put an end to the bride's enthusiasm for the sightseeing.

Given we were in town just before Remembrance Day I thought it was appropriate to take a walk through the Botanic Gardens and visit the Shrine of Remembrance. I must say I had no idea it was so big. Certainly nothing quite so impressive in WA. One side of the grass had been earmarked for the placement of poppies by the public. I guess that's an annual thing. There weren't that many there when I visited but no doubt their numbers swelled closer to the 11th.


Aside from this we just walked around a bit and enjoyed some nice breakfasts. We're actually heading back to Melbourne next month and will be trying to fit a lot more in this time, along with BabyGM, as well. But that's likely to be a whole new TR for later.

Next stop on this journey... Auckland!

 

[love_the_life]

Love Melbourne - great coffee and overall feel.

 

[cove]

That bright yellow circle at the top of the building is the Langham Hotel which has an excellent smorgasbord that Mrscove really enjoys.
Even my youngest son goes there with his girlfriend.
I think MrsGM would get on board the chase if you were to place her in a VA or QF suite in business class. I believe the cash component was $17.80 each way and something like 33,800 points per person each way for VA.
Thanks for the pictures of Melbourne as it is an exciting city.

 

[Major]

Mrs Major back from NZ last night. Look forward to your experiences

 

[GarrettM]

11/11/14 MEL - AKL
JQ213. Arrived around 1730.


Arrived at AKL in the dwindling light and straight to the Hertz desk to pick up our rental for the next few days. With just the two of us and a couple of suitcases I’d figured we’d be frugal and we went with a Holden Spark. I wasn’t expecting it to be bright red but there you go.

The drive from the airport into the city was straight-forward. I’d been a bit nervous about it to be honest but there were no problems. I have mentioned before about the travel app I use, Triposo. It’s excellent for a number of reasons, one of them being the included maps. We used this for navigating our way along the roads. Piece of cake.

A slight hiccup when we went to check in at the Quadrant Hotel, namely I accidentally tried to check in at the Pullman right next door. They didn’t seem keen for that for some reason.

The Quadrant gave us a deluxe queen apartment, but there was very little deluxe about it. However it was just a place to keep our suitcases while we toured the local sights so we weren’t too concerned.

We stayed close to the hotel and found a little Indian joint, aptly named, Little India. Indian Food - Dine in or Take Away | Little India

Tomorrow we would explore around town.

 

[GarrettM]

Been working through a lot of photos so I hope you will forgive me.

More or less the first thing we noticed walking downtown was The Northern Club. The Northern Club
A beautiful ivy covered building that houses a professional networking type organisation. Perhaps like the Weld Club in WA? But one that allows women. Go figure. Gorgeous building though.


We had decided we would check out SkyTower as well, which offers some very impressive views of the city. It's quite a different feeling in the lift up to the observation deck too. For the very brave, I mean crazy, you can actually "jump" off the tower. They harness you up and you basically free fall until the harness kicks in and brings you down to the ground. The jump point is above the observation deck, so every 15 minutes or so you'll be admiring the view in one spot and then some nutter flies past the window - probably praying to whatever deity they prefer that the ropes hold.


After our tower viewing we headed to Mt Eden. A dormant volcano more or less in the heart of Auckland, and one that offers a nice view of Eden Park for those who like their rugby. I don't. You can only walk the outer rim of the cone. Not totally sure why that is. Not that you'd want to climb back up if you went in anyway. It is steep.


From Mt Eden we hopped in the car and went across the Harbour Bridge and did the loop up around to Devonport. The wind was blowing a bit of a gale which was a bugger. We walked around the old fortifications at North Head. Sadly a lot of the pics didn't work out, but here's me going down to check out one of the old ammo bunkers.


That was essentially the end of our short tour of Auckland. I've been told it's not really a place for tourists, and I guess that may be true. But it's a fine enough place to start if you are going to NZ.
It also has a pretty good French restuarant called Ortolana which we had read about it. ORTOLANA
They don't take a lot of bookings but they have a pretty good system of accommodating walk-ups. They just find you a space, get you drinks, and keep you happy until space opens up. They squeezed us onto a little table outside for 10 minutes or so and then we got one inside after that. And the food was excellent. Sadly I have no pics though.

What I do have a lot of pics of though, is our next holiday highlight.
It's a couple hours outside Auckland, and it's extremely popular.

 

[GarrettM]

Heads up Tolkein fans!!
There was just no way I was going to NZ and not visiting THE MECCA of Lord of the Rings geekdom.

Hobbiton was built on a farm near the town of Matamata, a couple hours south-east of Auckland. It was built on a temporary basis in 1998 or so after Peter Jackson spotted it from the air. But it was dismantled after the LotR, and then rebuilt on a more permanent brief for the filming of the Hobbit.
And it is busy. They have a whole bunch of buses running from the central visitor's hub from early morning to late afternoon. And it's the only way tourists can access it, as the farm it's on is still an active concern.
For those of you familiar with The Hobbit film, Bilbo runs through the garden, past this sign, and then out through the brick causeway here to chase down Thorin's party.

All the doors of the hobbit holes are just facades of course, but it's still easy to imagine them as actual homes under the hill.
I can't remember exactly how many they built, but a Wikipedia check tells me it's 37, which sounds about right.


Here is my gorgeous bride near the entrance to the village, which hopefully gives an idea of the scope of the project.

In the back left you can see the oak tree growing out of Bag End, the home of the Bagginses.
But more on that shortly

 

[GarrettM]

What these photos have reminded me of was that NZ can be bloody sunny in November. Don't forget to slip, slop, slap.

Now, Bag End. It's obviously the most important part of the recreation. It's the biggest "hole" in the Shire, and also the only facade of the village that is more than just a door. You can actually walk inside. For about two feet. They dug out just enough to make it look realistic for when characters go inside. But there's nothing actually inside except for some gravel on the floor and some beams holding the hill at bay.

Atop Bag End of course it the old oak tree. It's sort of real. In that it was cut down elsewhere, stored for a while, and then reinstalled on top of the hill with some concrete and steel framing. And then Jackson got his hands on some students - both primary I think but also film students - and had them painting artificial leaves so they could all then be individually attached to the "tree". Something like 200,000 of them. Mental.
There are some real trees at Hobbiton of course. Including...

The Party Tree! This is where Bilbo celebrates his Eleventy-First Birthday with Gandalf and Frodo et al at the start of Fellowship of the Ring, before slipping said ring on his finger and stealing away. It stands proud in a gorgeous little clearing that is often used by the tour mob for their own parties, which is nice.

Not even the trout are real.
Fans of the books and films would remember that Hobbiton is actually on a river. Well there's no river here. The lake though does have an offshoot which the film team managed to make look like a river, and it was on this that they built the Old Mill, which they then pumped water through to make it look like it was indeed on a river.

That's the view of the mill from the bridge across the lake. All this sight-seeing make a man thirsty. Luckily for me, the recreated Green Dragon Inn is one thing at Hobbiton that IS fully functional.

 

[GarrettM]

The Green Dragon

Included in the cost of the tour is a free pint at the Dragon, as well as a little snack. They do a couple of specialty ales, a cider, and a ginger beer. All Hobbit themed of course.
I had the cider, while MrsGM - who was with child - stuck to the non-alcoholic ginger beer. The little pub actually does meals as well, but I'm not quite sure how that works. It's all very cool though.

Cool mugs no? I bought one, along with a bottle of ginger beer, at the visitor centre after our tour. It made its way all the way home and is sitting in a kitchen cupboard. The empty bottle of ginger beer is still about somewhere as well.
The visitor centre had all manner of LotR merchandise, and honestly if I'd had the money and the space I would have gone way over board. Maybe next time.
Last pic from this part of the trip, a map of the Shire on the wall of the Green Dragon.

Really enjoying scrolling through the thousands of photos we took on this trip.
It was back to Auckland in the afternoon after our tour, for our last night at the Quadrant.
Tomorrow we would be checking out early and heading to the airport, as it was time to move on to Christchurch.

 

[GarrettM]

14/11/14 AKL-CHC
JQ247 Arrival around midday.
Crossing over the leading edges of the southern alps is pretty cool in the daylight. Plenty of snow-capped peaks to look at. Very majestic. Sadly I don't seem to have any pictures though.
We landed in CHC and picked up our Hertz hire car without any drama. This time we'd gone with a Toyota Yaris. I'd been told not to bother with anything too racy as far as hire cars go. Most of the roads are far too windy to let you really put your foot down anyway. In fact a lot of people I understand prefer to get RVs, as they tend to work really well here. I can see that. But it's just not me.
Anyways... we weren't staying IN Christchurch, but rather just outside at Cass Bay. There's a highway out of town that takes you through a long-tunnel under Castle Rock to Lyttleton, at which point you turn right.
We had found the place on AirBNB and it looked perfect for a couple of loved up honeymooner's such as us. https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/2009003?s=957Ag2zm
Honestly I think their pics do it more justice than mine.
Even had a small welcoming gift for us.

 

[docjames]

Enjoying the TR.

And congrats too!

 

[GarrettM]

Enjoying the TR.

And congrats too!

Cheers.
Here is another shot of the view from our little hideaway above the bay.


I had been told to expect a "sense of sadness" in Christchurch. Honestly I had no idea until we'd done a bit of a tour just how much had been lost in the 2011 quake.
As we drove around I remarked on all the vacant land across the city. Seemingly every road and street had at least one large parcel that had been levelled flat.
Apparently they either lost or were forced to demolish well over 1000 buildings in the central city alone. Crazy.

Officially more than 10,000 people have since left the town, although some people told us it could be three times as many.
There's definitely a very sombre mood around the place. We did a Quake Damage tour which filled in a lot of the details, and explained a bit about what happened during the two big quakes of 2010/11.
185 people died in the 2011 event. 115 of them were in the six-storey Cantebury Television Building, which collapsed. We drove past that site which was just another empty lot. Terribly sad.

This is the memorial for the victims. 185 empty white chairs. All unique.

 

[Pug1]

Cheers.
Here is another shot of the view from our little hideaway above the bay.
View attachment 67083

I had been told to expect a "sense of sadness" in Christchurch. Honestly I had no idea until we'd done a bit of a tour just how much had been lost in the 2011 quake.
As we drove around I remarked on all the vacant land across the city. Seemingly every road and street had at least one large parcel that had been levelled flat.
Apparently they either lost or were forced to demolish well over 1000 buildings in the central city alone. Crazy.
View attachment 67084View attachment 67085
Officially more than 10,000 people have since left the town, although some people told us it could be three times as many.
There's definitely a very sombre mood around the place. We did a Quake Damage tour which filled in a lot of the details, and explained a bit about what happened during the two big quakes of 2010/11.
185 people died in the 2011 event. 115 of them were in the six-storey Cantebury Television Building, which collapsed. We drove past that site which was just another empty lot. Terribly sad.
View attachment 67086
This is the memorial for the victims. 185 empty white chairs. All unique.

enjoying your report GarrettM. We lived in Chch before the quakes and it was and hopefully still is a beautiful city with the friendliest people on Earth. We will be arriving on Holland America into Akaroa on 30 March and have hired a car to drive up to see our little city again. We loved the drive around the water to Church Bay, Governors Bay and Cass Bay, it's beautiful. Hope you manage to get to Akaroa.

 

[love_the_life]

.......
185 people died in the 2011 event. 115 of them were in the six-storey Cantebury Television Building, which collapsed. We drove past that site which was just another empty lot. Terribly sad.
View attachment 67086
This is the memorial for the victims. 185 empty white chairs. All unique.

That's a really moving memorial. The idea that every person was a unique individual and recognised by the different chairs is great.

 

[GarrettM]

enjoying your report GarrettM. We lived in Chch before the quakes and it was and hopefully still is a beautiful city with the friendliest people on Earth. We will be arriving on Holland America into Akaroa on 30 March and have hired a car to drive up to see our little city again. We loved the drive around the water to Church Bay, Governors Bay and Cass Bay, it's beautiful. Hope you manage to get to Akaroa.

Thanks Pug1! We did get to Akaroa in fact. And indeed it was some drive. I'll have some more info in the next update - probably later tonight!

 

[UpInTheAir:)]

Wow.. I haven't been to Christchurch since the quakes either.. Thanks for sharing GarrettM...

 

[VPS]

Didn't see the chairs when I was in Christchurch last year but it is a very moving and poignant memorial - thanks for the TR

 

[GarrettM]

We'd read a little about the old French settlement of Akaroa and decided it was worth a day trip. Or a half day trip really. Welcome to Akaroa and the Bays | Akaroa – New Zealand
It's maybe 30 kilometres or so to the south-east of Christchurch, but the way the road winds around you probably end up driving around three times as far.
Ahhh yes. The winding roads...

No need for high-powered V8s around here. You'd never really get them up to speed. And if you've hired a manual car (we did) you're going to give the left leg a serious workout. But it's all in good fun. I actually wished I was behind the wheel of my own Subaru! She would have gobbled up that journey. The road itself is well maintained. It cuts through a lot of farming areas, so plenty of paddocks to check out. Obviously a lot of sheep among the landmarks.
I noticed the locals don't let the blind corners and steep descents bother them too much. More than once I found someone a little too close for comfort up my rear end. The bikers were the worst! Insane buggers.

It is a great drive though. Takes you along the northern shores of Lake Forsyth, an then past Little River, where we noticed this unique accommodation option.

The road then winds around the northern shores of an ocean inlet before tracking back down on the eastern side towards Akaroa. The whole peninsula is part of an ancient volcano and really makes for some great scenery. Not that I can show much because car photos are mostly bad.
Here's a pic of the land spit at Barry's Bay though, taken on the drive.


And the bride enjoying an icecream on the Akaroa jetty. I imagine the hills in the background are the edges of the old volcano. Immense.

 

[GarrettM]

Down the road from our little hill-top cabin is the town of Lyttelton. It's one of the major ports of the Southern Island, and sits on the other side of the Port Hills to Christchurch. These are serious hills too. But people have managed to build pretty well on the slopes. Not my cup of tea though. And again there was considerable damage here during the quakes.
We stopped off here to check out the weekend markets. Some tasty treats and a very pleasant small-town atmosphere. Obviously a lot of logging going on around too.

 

[GarrettM]

One last highlight of Christchurch that deserves its own post. Although we'd enjoyed a very nice meal at Tequila Mockingbird Tequila Mockingbird there is one place that I would happily advise anyone visiting this part of the world to try.

Pedro's House Of Lamb | NZ Lamb Takeaway

It's basically just a shack, and it really only offers one item on the menu. And it's takeaway only. But it's incredible.
I'll let the photos explain.


That's $35 for lamb shoulder with scalloped potatoes. Ignore the packaging and the cutlery. It's truly divine.
We ate it on a park bunch in the twilight and I was almost tempted to go back and get a second one it was that good.

So that was Christchurch. I would be interested in going back one day when the rebuild is more advanced. Perhaps even to help out in some way. I don't know. My job skills are fairly transferable I guess. Just need to find the right place and opportunity to transfer them.

Next up - turning a 6 hour drive into a nine day road trip!