Moorea

As I mentioned before, hardly any people stay on Tahiti these days and if they fly that way, it's because they want to go to Moorea, the island right in front of Papeete. It is thé honeymoon island of French Polynesia with lots of gorgeous resorts and private beaches. The newly weds (mostly American) are all over the island, taking a jungle tour in a big 4x4 or going all together on a quad ride to Cook's Bay.

We spent two days on Moorea, rented a scooter and drove around the island twice. Unfortunately, there was no way we could afford to stay in one of those super-de-luxe- hotels, but even with a small budget, we got to appreciate the island. (But still, if I look at the pictures of the Sofitel.....:-))

This picture will remind me to play Euromillions as soon as I get back. Who wouldn't love to spend a couple of nights in one of the Sofitel's huts?

Cook's Bay

Pineapple plantations on Moorea

Where we spent the night: a bit more modest than the Sofitel, but our private beach wasn't bad at all!

Marlon Brando's Island

Late Marlon Brando owned an island in French Polynesia, it's called Tetiaroa and I'll show you that the he got amazing value for his money. Tetiaroa is an atoll in the Pacific Ocean and only accessible by boat, it took us three hours by catamaran to reach it from Tahiti. Apart from thousands of birds, there is absolutely no-one or nothing on Tetia. You absolutely need good weather to visit, because there is no activity on the island and you can't spend the night there. When we arrived, it was a little cloudy but then the sun came out and the sea showed its true colors. Insanely beautiful!

Paradise Lost

Aloha tout le monde! We have spent last week on....Tahiti! I am writing this from the States now, I am running behind with updating the blog:-( So posts about the Sates as from next week!

We didn't come up with the idea of visiting Tahiti ourselves, it was the agent who helped us booking the round the world ticket who suggested to take a break on either Fiji, Cook Islands or Tahiti so we thought: why not? How often do you get the chance to visit one of these 'million-miles-away' islands? As by wonder, Benoit found out a little later that he had a cousin living in the capital, Papeete, so we contacted her and things couldn't have been any smoother. She and her partner invited us to stay  at their place for the whole week, they picked us up at the airport, drove us around the island, took us for dinner, cooked for us....We've truly been spoilt in this heavenly place! 

Tahiti is French territory and it used to attract many tourists until a few years back. The crisis has hit the Polynesian island extremely hard and tourists are staying away now. We saw plenty of luxurious hotels, like the Hilton and the Sofitel that had to close their doors and are now empty, abandoned and overgrown. Lots of people lost their jobs and without a decent unemployment system, fell into poverty. Another source of income, fishing, is being threatened as well since Korea and Japan signed an agreement with French Polynesia and are now allowed to 'empty' the seas. As a result, unemployment on Tahiti is very high and people haven't got many alternatives. It's quite sad because they live in one of the most beautiful and colorful paces on earth.

The Shire

This is the last post on New Zealand but let me tell you: I saved the best for last! Welcome to....Hobbiton!

It may sound ridiculous but the moment we decided to add New Zealand to our itinerary, I knew I had to visit this place. I am not even a huge LOTR fan but I just love the hobbits, love Elijah Wood's character and love their insanely romantic and idyllic home town.

The entire village has been preserved after filming Lord of the Rings and has been extended when they started filming The Hobbit in 2011, which will be released at the end of this year I think. You'll find it in Matamata, two hours driving from Auckland and it sits on private property. After filming, the land owners started to negotiate with Peter Jackson and convinced him not to destroy the set and allow them to organize guided tours on their farm land. These guys must be really rich by now because they charge 66NZD per person, which is around 45 Euro, for a one hour guided tour through Hobbiton! Although I guess that also the town of Matamata and maybe the movie makers themselves benefit of this entry price? 

Anyhow we didn't let it spoil our hobbit day because it was a beautiful spring day after all with blue skies, birds chirping in the trees, sheep bleating from the rolling hills that were all around; it just couldn't be more perfect!

There are 44 hobbit holes in the town and not one is like the other. Every little house, or front because there is no house behind the door, has its own details like flowers, post boxes, windows, wind vanes.... Some of them have benches, others have tiny cart wheels or beehives that make their hole a little cuter than the neighbor's. It's just incredible how things like that have been taken care of and you can spend hours discovering props in Hobbiton. 

I was also very surprised about the size of the set, it really is quite big and one hour is just enough to walk through it. There is the lake and the party tree next to it that is just monstruous and also the main reason why the film maker has chosen this location. Behind the lake, there is the Green Dragon pub which will soon be open to the public and will serve them the 1% alcohol hobbit beer. Such a pity we came too early for that! 

I took more than 200 pictures that day, that's how much I enjoyed visiting Hobbiton! If only Benoit had dressed up as Frodo, as I told him to, we'd even had cooler pictures. (guys and their ego sometimes, tss...) I really had a hard time selecting for the blog but I hope these pictures make you smile like I do when I'm looking at them again (and again)!

This tree on top of Bilbo Baggins' house has an extraordinary story: it wasn't there originally, the film makers found it somewhere else and planted it here. The leaves are imported from Taiwan and are all, individually, wired around the branches. There are millions of them! Unfortunately, the leaves didn't adapt very well to NZ climate and started to turn blue after a while so they all had to be sprayed green again. Today, they are still green but if you look closer, it's a very weird, unnatural kind of green.

Fluo rocks and mud pools

After the post on Christchurch and Tongariro, you might have started to suspect that the earth in New Zealand isn't particularly sleepy. In fact, there are about 15'000 earth quakes per year (most of them are hardly felt but some can be very strong and damaging), there are also 50 volcanoes and many moving glaciers. Another example is the town of Rotorua, not far from Auckland. It's one of the top destinations in NZ, thanks to its incredibly active surface. There are geysers, mud pools, hot pools, hot rocks, steam coming from out of nowhere and all that. I guess they all have their official or scientific names but let's just say that there is plenty of fascinating stuff coming out of the earth in Rotorua. It is also the center of Maori culture and if you want to visit the fascinating stuff, you need a Maori guide to accompany you which is useful, as some of these phenomena are quite dangerous, and interesting at the same time because they'll tell you more about their life and culture. One thing you'll have to keep in mind when you want to visit Rotorua is that it smells!! Because of the sulphur, you won't be able to escape the overpowering rotten egg smell that is just everywhere, even inside hotels, restaurants, the tourist information office...We camped on the car park of a hostel when we visited and even when we went inside to cook or take a shower, the sulphur odor wouldn't leave us alone! Our guide took this quite positively though: as long as it smells in Rotorua, she is sure to have a job:-)