THE TRAVELING MARTINI'S

Hobbiton is a working farm with sheep and cows etc. Peter Jackson found the location with its lush green rolling hills and pastures while flying over in a helicopter. He noticed how it looked like JRR Tolkiens descriptions of Hobbiton in his books. The New Zealand army helped build the temporary set including bridges. When they finished filming at this location they began to tear down many of the hobbit holes but they left 17 as bare plywood facades. With these left they started public guided tours in 2002. This all changed as they needed to film again and they built 44 permanent Hobbit holes. Some were built into the hills and others were covered with dirt after being built. In 2012 they built the Green Dragon Inn and it was our the final destination with scones, muffins, and a ginger beer they brew as well as a local apple cider. The ginger beer was wonderful! The whole experience was movie magic. Larkin binged watched Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit on our sea days. I read while it was running…as i write this we are watching The Hobbit yet again . I am getting it – finally – I think. Maybe I should try to read the books again! Amazing how many of our 60 plus year old passengers are huge fans.

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Each hole is built to a different size to trick the eye into thinking someone was taller or shorter in the movie. Only one, a red one, was created and available to enter. There was not much to see inside. It was one of the taller doors whether you notice it or not!

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On the tour, our guide Emily told a story of some woman running up to the laundry trying to stuff it all in her bag. Needless to say they threw her off the set…These were hobbit clothes that were changed every day during filming! I only get my laundry fix via photos.

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During the second filming the tree above Bag End was the wrong size so they cut it down, put a fake one in and voila – oops no – the director said the color of the leaves was wrong so the set designers had to paint each and every leaf the proper color. That is not a job I would have wanted. It now looks like a proper oak tree.

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The day or two before we took our tour it had poured rain. I’m sure enjoying this tour with an umbrella just wouldn’t have been the same! Our day was stunning and some of the grasses were even beginning to turn green! Amazingly I even got a great shot from the other side of the Green Dragon where not a single tourist was walking around! Each tour group was fairly small and the whole experience seemed somewhat private.

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Sorry for two in one day but we end up in Sydney tomorrow and I have one more day in Wellington to begin blogging about. Larkin is now on 24 hour confinement as she has a bacterial infection and it is required by the Australian authorities. We hope her meds kick in. Lots of sleep helps!

On our second day in Auckland we met our tour group to head out via boat to Waiheke Island and wine tasting. We had to walk from the ship to the next pier. Easy right? NO! Auckland has tons of construction so we had to cross a major intersection and cross over one pier and back across a major street to stand in line and get on a commuter ferry. At least the weather was delightful as you can see from the photo.

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Its not quite Palm Beach in Florida but it was really beautiful and had much more vertical relief! We took a drive around parts of the island and stopped for tea/coffee and scones/muffins in a quaint town near a more accessible beach. Larkin and I were able to gather our requisite sand for our collection! Our next stop was for wine…make that our next two stops!

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Our first winery was Stony Ridge which was the second winery on the island in 1978. They like their yoga and buddha’s. Michael looks like an American Buddha! The wines were okay – their whites were enjoyable but their “the rose” wine which was a very expensive cabernet malbec etc. blend was very under ripe and green and after paying $18 New Zealand dollars for a taste wasn’t even decent. Glad Larkin and I didn’t bother – but I did have a mini sip of Michael’s!

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Bach(pronounced Batch) in New Zealand means a small vacation cottage. They are all over New Zealand. They named this winery after the Batch as well as small batches of wines and one of their labels is Thomas’s Bach meaning this winery is his little vacation cottage – ha ha ha!

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After the ferry ride and the island tour we were back in time to sit in the hot tub. Okay so I did and Larkin and Michael took naps. It was delightful after a day of sitting. My next post will be on our fabulous trip to Hobbiton from Tauranga, New Zealand. Happy Belated Mardi Gras. Most of us are happy to be on the ship and not dealing with the Corona Virus fears at home. Sydney is tomorrow and we will have a face to face as we disembark to enjoy a few days in the city. We have SIX the musical lined up at the Opera House for the 29th – Happy leap day.

Mexican Food!!! Woo hoo! Rain greeted us at Auckland as we sailed into the port. They had not had rain in over a month. were celebrating!We have not had rain in California for a month either or so we hear. We have now been on the road – well really on the high seas for over a month now! The three of us could view Mexicali the restaurant from our deck so we donned rain coats and walked to burritos, keto bowls and quesadillas. The food quenched our hunger for Mexican. We have great margaritas on the ship so we didn’t bother with ‘rita’s!

A pano of our room in the beautiful hilltop Museum in Auckland. It was the setting for our World Cruisers special party as well as the museum’s first Lord of the Rings dinner in their gorgeous event center above the museum. We walked through incredible information and artifacts of WWI and WWII as we made our way by bus fulls to our party room. Wish we had time to enjoy the museum itself! About 200 people who are on the world cruise joined us for the celebration. The food and wine were delicious and all the characters made the evening especially magical!

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Gimley won the biggest nose contest. Michael was a far second! Larkin is watching the makeup artist put makeup on a female dwarf for all to see!

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It was amazing to see the costumed servers drop a plate at each place. You can see behind the captain there are tons of desserts and few people. What a hoot. We were on the last bus back to the ship and enjoyed the camaraderie. Captain Aivo will join us again in Barcelona for the end of our cruise! Tammy our social hostess is married to Andy our cruise director. He swore Tammy had 3 desserts!

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I was going to try to add the next two days in the post…but these Lord of the Ring World Cruise memories were a weeks worth of memories. Next from Waiheke Island and its wineries to Hobbiton to friends in Napier. I will post them when I get the time. My biggest issue in blogging is how long it takes to send photos from the iphone to my computer. Iphone no longer lets you plug in and download. A pity – the extra time is like pulling teeth! Slow wifi makes it seem more like a root canal! By creating and sharing this blog with friends, I create a memory for the three of us too. Its worth it all! Enjoy your last week of February!

We have now been a day ahead of most of you. We are sailing toward New Zealand after our two stops in Fiji. Laukota was on our itinerary but we arrived a day early. Our magician after being asked what is the largest item he has made disappear stated, “two islands in Samoa” which always got a laugh since we sailed right past them both to land in Fiji a day early. We expected 6 hours of inspection as they checked ALL the passengers that embarked at Papeete. We were cleared 3 hours early but all the excursions happened in the afternoon regardless. Oh well…

Our first stop in Lautoka included yes a Mud bath and massage. Three buses…approximately 100 folks from the ship in this thermal area where the people live and share their lifestyle which is centered around the hot water. Some of us were instructed to get our massages first…awe too bad…how wonderful! Fifteen minutes of bliss listening to all the chatter around us and the fud fud fud of hands pummeling our bodies! Ever body type you can imagine – no way to be self conscious! They love their coconut oil. We were happy massage was first so the oils had time to soak in and rinse off. Michael’s swollen legs were massaged until the swelling was gone. A friend had a finger with arthritis she couldn’t bend. After the massage and mud treatment, well it still bends!

One thing that I thought strange on Fiji was the requirement that no one could wear a hat in villages. I understand the worship of hair (maybe their men don’t go bald!) and that you can never touch another persons hair. No knees on women could be shown and no shoulders but no requirement like that for men. There are equal amounts of Muslim and Christians so it couldn’t be one or the other exclusively. After being in the other Polynesian cultures it seemed odd to me. Then as you see below we were all in swim suits covered in mud! I guess that was okay since they made money that way!

All we can say is what a hoot – weird – strange – and we’d do it all again. After coating ourselves from a huge bucket of mud (and helping each other) – we stood around like dying birds flapping our arms to dry out. We were not black faced but if you look close, we looked more like Shrek because the mud as it dried had a green tint to it!

We had to wait our turn to climb down the slippery slope – read slipper stairs and huge slimy rocks and start washing the dried mud off in a huge pond of mud and yes it seemed somewhat redundant. We were up to our knees in this mud. When sufficiently rinsed we once again attempted to climb those rocks and stairs and mosey on over to this huge warm wonderful natural pool again with stairs and odd rocks at the bottom. If we scrunched down we could sort of float or waddle easier to the other set of stairs as we realized we didn’t want to ever get out. Our little sortie of folks had huge smiles on their faces and knew this excursion in its own right was simply delightful. The fact it was one of the free ones made it even better!!! Our bus made it back just in time and then we heard sirens and two other buses full of cruisers were rushing back. No need to hurry really as we just had to make it to the other side of the island by the next morning! We’d already cleared customs at Laukota so sailing into Suva was easy peasy.

I still love finding Laundry – view or no view…I now have encouraged others on the ship to notice it. I’m always hearing how someone has taken photos of laundry and thought of me as they did it! These shots were on our bus ride to the mud hole!

Our day at Suva was laid back and relaxed. There were a few tours that were added since this was a new port but we figured those who couldn’t tour because theirs were cancelled the day before might have the opportunity to do one in Suva. Michael stayed on the ship and Larkin and I walked the local market and water front.

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I’d put a new blog in but I think its better to add this here. We have a new itinerary. For those of you worried about us sailing into Asian waters, that has changed! We will now go around south Australia. Singapore has been cancelled so we could possibly stay out of harms way. Seventy five people were getting off in Singapore and now they can choose to leave in Sydney or Perth. We are very excited because we’ve been down the Gold Coast of Australia with the band but have never sailed the southern coast of Australia. Larkin will now get to see Tasmania as we are sailing into a port even Michael and I have not seen on the north side. We look forward to having the ability to purchase some great wines – have any to recommend???

We will have seven days at sea after Fremantle/Perth. So many are like NOOOOOOO! Michael, Larkin and I are like YIPPEE! We adore seas days! We end up in Columbo, Sri Lanka on the day we were due to arrive. Lets pray the Corona Virus is under control in the next month and a half! Happy 02/20/2020! Auckland, New Zealand here we come!

Even though the first segment ended at Papeete, I have included Bora Bora as part of this segment. Michael, Larkin and I didn’t want to do the usual climb on climb off a Le Truck on the island which I hear was more like an open air bus in this century versus the 1980’s when I visited for the very first time when they were much more for locals and very truck like. Many of the water tours we were interested in were full and since Larkin had never been to Bora Bora, we rented a car for five hours and drove first clockwise then again counter clockwise around the island. It only takes an hour to circumnavigate the island and there were plenty of stops to make with its vastly different cloud enshrouded Mt Otemanu.

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The island seemed much cleaner than the last time Michael and I were on Bora Bora with the band and the Oceania Marina in 2013. As we drove around there was little traffic and we didn’t notice our other fellow passengers in their Le Trucks until after our lunch at Bloody Mary’s. I got to drive the little stick shift black car and pull over anywhere we wanted on either side of the road. Larkin didn’t get car sick as the speed limit was about 30 mph! We had the island to ourselves! It was sad to see the Hotel Marara closed or being remodeled and of course the Hotel Bora Bora is still shuttered but life goes on. All the upscale hotels are a boat ride away to the outer islands. However, I like the vibe of the island proper. The heat and humidity seemed so oppressive but our little car had air conditioning!

Thanks to Jane S. who suggested we collect magnets, these are our first segment collection! Each time Larkin and I find a store with souvenir magnets (only one island, Fakarava, didn’t have any!), we look at them all and almost always have individually chosen the same one. Most people put these type of things on the door to their cabin, but our door is different and doesn’t seem to hold them so we have put ours on the inside wall at our entry. It took Michael over a week to even notice they were there – but he does like them!

As our first 18 or so days ended, we found out our ship is not allowed into Samoa or American Samoa. The islands just feel they want to be isolated for the Corona virus and don’t feel they can check us all out etc. So sad we can’t buy those 3x or 4x shirts those big Samoan’s need for Michael. We now have two extra days at sea BUT they have requested an extra port in Fiji and the front office in Miami has gotten approval. We’ve heard it will take 7 hours to clear customs….probably looking at each passport!

Its amazing how things can get messed up and jumbled with the crossing of the date line in a day or so along with a new port of call, mixed up excursions and on top of all that there is a big storm brewing. We have heard the captain is trying to skirt around. Well we have an extra day to do it in! As I write this we have just passed through a big rain shower. Here now, gone in minutes. The seas were glassy this morning but have started to churn a little more as they day has progressed.

Larkin and I have been joining a native Hawaiian, June to make kukui nut necklaces and bracelets. Men and women are enjoying this creative outlet. I wasn’t sure how much fun it would be but when I finished, I realized I wanted to do more!

Michael and I are now on lesson 7 in Italian and still enjoy them!

A side addition to this blog is noticing that almost every dog looks alike no matter what French Polynesian Island we are on. Scrappy, mid sized, brown and skinny. Then the oddly shaped little white fluffy dogs. All male dogs still all their parts hence the plethora of dogs!

Although I have no photos, Larkin and I both commented and notice how almost all males have a tattoo on their legs at least. The beautiful brown skin with individual tattoos are stunning. Sometimes tatoos just work!

Happy Valentines Day and my apologies for two blogs in one day. Second segment here we come. Fiji awaits!

Michael and I have always enjoyed finding local markets. Larkin wasn’t quite as thrilled but enjoyed the walk through while I took photos. We often wish we could just rent a cabin and cook to eat like the locals do, whether it is Venice, Rome, Mexico City or Saigon! This market made me smile! The fresh fruits looked incredible. It was fun to notice the boat load up palettes of this fresh fruit. We were actually running out of bananas.

After our jaunt through a few streets near our port, we loaded into an open air truck with 4 others. Bob and Luke from New York City and we finally met Sun and Jeung from Wisconsin via Korea. Sun is 19 and applying to art schools. His grandmother couldn’t make the cruise so he got to join the entire world cruise with his mother. Needless to say Larkin now has a creative kid to bounce the world off of on the ship! He has also binge watched The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings on the ship! Our truck took us up into the crater walls of Papanoo. Advil and arnica helped the pain of the muscles that night since the roads are not kept up and potholes abounded.

A fun item to note: 10,000 steps, NO PROBLEMO! Sit in an open air truck, bounce away for about two hours and VOILA – 10,000 steps. Doesn’t increase metabolism but my Fitbit applauded me! Doesn’t take much to make me smile.

As far as trying to step on the scale each morning, well that doesn’t happen since the scale on a moving ship at sea bounces, and I say that lightly, between 25 up and 25 down from what I should be weighing…LOL! it never seems to stop so I have given up unless we are in port. Since I don’t like most desserts, that has helped my calorie count. Its hard to be low carb as the average age of the world cruisers is quite high and as a fellow guest mentioned, most food seems soft. As a rule the soups are delicious. There are always appetizers to enjoy and often the three of us just eat light many meals. The staff keeps pushing bread, extra food, more courses etc on us. Larkin laughs and keeps calling them our grandmothers, “you sure you don’t want more?!”

The next post is Bora Bora!!

What fun to take a ship of 590 or so and give 100 of them the opportunity to take a “jeep” tour of NUKU HIVA. What a hoot. It really meant about 24 local folks with four door Ford, Honda and Toyota etc. trucks divided up in groups of 12 all following each other up the steep roads on Nuku Hiva. However, the first jaunt was only two blocks to a church – duh. Double Duh when the next jaunt was another two blocks. They could have started it early on a slow walking tour and picked us up at the second stop. As you can see above the first worthy stop was the view over the bay and our boat in the background! None of our drivers knew any English. I joined another truck on the way back which only had two folks so I didn’t have to sit in the middle! Much more pleasant!

Look at the bird who is zooming in on any extra fish to take from the nurse sharks! Larkin and I were also able to pet them – and yes we felt safe. Of course me walking in up to my knees was questionable but they know that the real food was coming! We continued walking and found a lovely place to swim.

Some days seeing a boat and a bike and a beach seems just about enough!

Larkin and I enjoyed a day at Moorea. We walked or tried to walk to a beach but were picked up by a little old lady who took us to a pearl jewelry shop. The good news is we are still here and there was a beach AND pharmacy near by! We scooped up sand, took photos, complained about the heat and humidity and headed back to the pearl shop which called a ride for us! Back to the pier safe. Where was Michael? Nursing a sun burn from Fakarava. One must use sunscreen. Rule number ONE on tropical islands!

The three of us enjoyed, albeit feeling rushed, a bus trip on Maui starting with the IAO valley, then visions of whales breaching as we continued the bus ride to Lahaina for exactly two hours of shopping. We wanted Frida’s Mexican which we adore and fabulous exotic margaritas knowing Mexican food would not be in the food repertoire on our boat! Checked it off after an uber took us there and the Debbie Woehler came to say howdy. She graciously drove us back to the Banyon Tree and the museum so Larkin and I could pick up pairs of homemade feather earrings we had found last July during our visit. Check! Plenty of time for a leisurely walk back to the Outlet Mall, Exercise, check! We felt hurried but complete with time for a nap on the boat!

Larkin and I had a great trip with 24 other folks up to the Kilauea crater. Bear who was our guide was infectious with his knowledge of flora, fauna and history of the crater. He bought a DVD to share with us all on our drive down the mountain to the macadamia nut farm. The volcano has not been in active since the 1980’s and of course the last few years were amazing and wiped out homes on the island. Michael stayed ship side awaiting the Superbowl. Needless to say, the 49’ers played great for three quarters but forgot the fourth quarter. Our Cruise Director and Social Hostess, Andy and Tammy are married and from Kansas City, Missouri…they were so happy as the Chief’s 50 year drought is over – but the Captain said he couldn’t promise any ship would ever make a port of call in Kansas! They’ll have to wait millions of years for that to happen!

We hit French Polynesia tomorrow after four days at sea. Folks who had not crossed the equator kissed the fish and were dunked with a salt water bath yesterday to celebrate. We are now into summer – Larkin’s least favorite season – oh well! I’m loving it!

Michael and I continue our Italian lessons and are now on lesson 6 – its fun to be put on the spot with everyone muddling our way through trying to learn time, numbers, body parts – that was fun and of course restaurant items.

Buon Giorno! Ciao until a few more stops. E Mezzagiorno now so off to pranzo!

On one of our nights at Sea, we joined two other couples from the west coast who are on the full world cruise for a special meal in the Compass Rose (main dining room). It was Larkin’s favorite – INDIAN. We hoped for something different but we weren’t expecting delicious. We are ready to try it again!

On our first day on land after five days we did a submarine adventure. At 100′ you do loose all but the blue colors but it was still enjoyable….Then, we enjoyed dinner at Alan Wong’s. It was spectacular – just as Michael and I remembered it in the 1990’s! I think it is now one of Larkin’s favorite meals ever…

AND THEN…We ate at SUSHI SASABUNE on the same King Street as Alan Wong’s. Tom and Debbie had been there the week previous and said we had to go! Larkin ate everyone of the courses. I missed two and Michael missed three of the courses. We knew we wanted Asian food as the ship does not offer much – well except that fabulous Indian food by request.

More later!

We enjoyed dinner with Captain Aivo Palm and another couple from Southern California January 27 and I wrote this blog…it drafted and didn’t send. It was delightful. Tammy the social host from Kansas also joined our table. Needless to say she is a Chiefs fan as is her husband the Cruise Director. Michael should enjoy the game rooting for the 49ers! For some reason Larkin doesn’t see a reason for football so I will join her in Hilo to see volcanoes and waterfalls!

Captain Aivo also taught us the three ways to feel seasick. Number one is sleep. Larkin has enjoyed 12 plus hours the first two days. Now she understands why. Number two is eating. keep eating and keep eating as it helps for some reason. I just thought I had three meals a day because its there. and three…well feed the fish!!!! None of us has fed the fish!

We asked Tammy what does she do to stay a size zero. She said “I don’t exercise on the ship but I always take the stairs and floors 4-12 keep me in shape on the ship!” There is hope for us yet if we keep taking the stairs and walking a couple of miles a day. The other lady at our table brings three sizes of clothes – she has two desserts a day! I’m glad I’m not a dessert hound! My goal is not to grow out of my clothes!

I am sending this again and hope it is not somewhere else on my blog. Quite a learning curve and Larkin is NOT computer savvy! For those of you who are new…I think you’ll be able to go to previous posts at the bottom of this post. Otherwise on the home page you can now click on blog!