Auckland, New Zealand

Approximately eight thousand six hundred and thirty miles.

Or about thirteen thousand eight hundred and eighty eight kilometers.

I thought it was the furthest I had been from home. Apparently, it’s not, with Tel Aviv being around eight hundred miles further in the completely opposite direction. This is the distance from my hometown to Auckland, New Zealand. Queenstown will be a bit further, but still won’t win the title. It feels like the perfect home away from home. If only it was closer. But maybe that’s what makes it special; it is so remote and difficult to get to, the pace of life is slower and more relaxing here. Just emerald hills and hobbit holes, as far as the eye can see.

New Zealand is composed of two major islands, and the northern island does have a lot to offer – Auckland just isn’t it. Auckland suffers from the same urban sprawl issue that plagues many modern cities, and doesn’t have much city design or cohesive architecture to make up for it. While Singapore had Moshe Safdie and the Jewel Changi Airport, and Barcelona had Antoni Gaudi and Sagrada Familia, it doesn’t feel like any particular architect made a splash here. Auckland is quite soulless and probably the worst part of New Zealand. That being said, it was the perfect kick off point for a loop around the northern island.

First, we headed to Hot Water Beach. Unfortunately, despite being summer, it was quite cold and we hit the tail end of low tide. We decided it was not worth the remaining half hour to try and panic dig a hole as deep as we could and jump in; we decided instead to dig out feet into the sand and enjoy the beach. There’s a shack at the top of the beach that rents shovels and for two hours leading up to low tide and two hours following, you can dig a hole in the sand and the water that fills it will be naturally heated by hot water springs underneath the beach. Pretty neat trick. Not ten minutes up the road is Cathedral Cove, a small hike with an ice cream shack on another beach, this one overlooking a beautiful, stone cove. It was a bit inundated with fellow tourists, but since most come by boat, the hike was lovely and not crowded at all.

South of that, we stayed in the Bay of Plenty, farmland with an excellent view of the bay and the pacific beyond. I unfortunately did not map out our adventures well, as both the glowworm caves and Hobbiton set were quite a distance away from our accommodations; I would recommend finding closer accommodations.

The theme of this portion of our travels appears to be film making. We managed to sneak in a movie night in Auckland, curled up on a velvet green couch with some absolutely absurd flavored chips that David discovered. Watching Me and Earl and the Dying Girl did not leave me feeling forlorn; instead, it made me itch with the desire to create my own indie film so astonishing that it killed someone. The next day we did the Weta Workshop, which is an immersive and interactive fake film set. They have some nods to real movies and showcase real creation processes, but the films depicted are forever frozen in time, there to spark the interest of children in the film making process. Already itching with interest, I wished that the Weta Workshop had more to it, a section where you could make your own props or your own mini stop motion film. I know they do offer some classes on special effects and world building, but they didn’t look as serious as I would have hoped for, and the price tag was a bit steep.

Of course, after that, the itching turned feverish as we drove deeper into Middle Earth and ventured into our tour of the Hobbiton Set. I count us very lucky; the Shire was nothing like this after the production of the Lord of the Rings movies. Constructed for filming and not longevity, the structures on the Alexander farm were deconstructed or destroyed in the most part after the original filming. Due to the difficulties of removing the scaffolding from the hillsides, many of the hobbit hole frames were left to sprinkle the hills, but not colorful or ornate as one might imagine. The Alexandar farm still offered tours of the area. However, years later when Peter Jackson returned with the proposal of new movies, the owners of the farm made a bold request this time – to expensively create the new set permanently, and so it could be converted to a touring location after filming. And so, now, despite my dislike of the Hobbit movies, I do have them to thank for a more in-depth film set experience. And besides, some of the hobbit homes from the Lord of the Rings, like Samwise’s home, were faithfully reconstructed, too.

I slightly wish that they had left one of the originals in decay to showcase the temporary nature of the normal set building process. They could discuss the differences in materials and processes and what was movie magic and what was real. But alas, the fine detail work and permanent props were definitely stunning and more interesting to most people, I imagine. And I can’t say I didn’t love it, as David and I spent the entire drive home discussing the merits of building our own hobbit hole. I mean, in this expensive energy era, being partially submerged could really save on air conditioning costs, for starters. Homes that use earth, either covering the structure, making it partially out of caves, or using large stones within the structure, have been around for thousands of years, as well. And I think something inside each of us wishes to live amongst and beneath rolling hills, eating and merrymaking our ways through life.

I wonder if I made my own film, what fictitious landscapes and creatures I might introduce. If I wanted to go outlandish, I might want to get my start in literature, where conjuring giant stone cities drenched in incorporated waterfalls won’t bankrupt me or require intensive miniature scale creations. But if I wanted to go subtle or slightly parallel to our normal world, maybe it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility to create my own set, my own world, my own story.

For most people, I think New Zealand brings alive this sense of adventure. Like the Fellowship, a longing to get lost deep in the jungles and mountainsides of the beautiful country calls to us. But for me, I also long to share these adventures or tall tales through a lens with the world.