New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: Get Off The Road!

After visiting Hobbiton, the next couple days have been all about hitting the road and eventually ending up in Wellington.  Starting out from Hamilton, I made my way south.  The first part of the trip was a repeat of my drive to the Waitomo Caves, but eventually I passed there and continued south.  The drive isn't fast, but it's pretty.  A lot of fairly steep hillsides covered in grass that look almost terraced, but I think maybe it is just grass growing on top of piles of lava rock, making it appear terraced.  I'm not actually sure.  The funny thing is it was all these hills and then I turned onto another road and things changed dramatically.  

The rolling green was gone and replaced with brush that was more brown than anything else (I do have to remind myself at times that it is just spring here, and this was also up at higher elevations).  The brush reminded me a lot of parts of Iceland, the sort of tundra feel.  This change in scenery occurred when I turned onto the road to Tongariro National Park.  Tongariro NP is the oldest national park in New Zealand and the 6th oldest national park in the world!  

Tongariro National Park is home to 3 active volcanoes, one of which played Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films.  The largest of the 3 volcanoes is Mount Ruapehu.  The last major eruptions at Mount Ruapehu occurred in 1995 and 1996, though smaller ones have occurred as recently as 2009.  The crazy thing is there is a ski resort up on the side of the volcano!  The area around the ski resort also doubled as the lands of Mordor in the LOTR films.  I never actually saw the majority of Mount Ruapehu because it was in the clouds.  Mount Ngauruhoe was the volcano that acted as Mount Doom.  I don't think I saw that one either, but it's hard to say.  I have a picture of a definite volcanic cone, but there are 3 volcanoes there.  I think the picture I have is actually of Mount Tongariro.  But like I said, it was very cloudy and I never caught more than a slight glimpse of anything.

Tawhai Falls (aka the Forbidden Pool) in Tongariro National Park

Upon arrival at the park, I stopped by Tawhai Falls.  This is where The Forbidden Pool scenes were done for LOTR.  The scenes of Gollum down at the base of a waterfall, with Faramir threatening to shoot him for being in the Forbidden Pool, and Frodo saying "This creature is bound to me," to convince Faramir not to.  Movie magic makes the falls seem a lot larger than they actually are.  But the water surrounding them is amazingly clear and nice.

The Lower Taranaki Falls

After stopping by Tawhai Falls, I went up to the Whakapapa Visitor Center.  From there I settled on a 2 hr long hike to Taranaki Falls.  The hike took you through some of the brush and then into forests that were missed by earlier eruptions of Ruapehu.  Then you get to a lower falls (which I thought were the destination at first, but as I continued around the loop I realized I was wrong).  Eventually a little ways further along you get to the big Tarankai Falls.  I made it there about 2 minutes before a class of teenage school boys appeared, stripped down to their shorts and jumped in the pool at the base of the falls.  So then I waited for them to clear out so I could get some more pictures.  From there I continued up and around back toward the Visitor Center.

Taranaki Falls

From the Visitor Center, I took my car up to the ski resort on the side of the mountain, in hopes of seeing some of Mordor, but the resort was closing for the day, so I couldn't get to the actual filming site.  I settled for some of the lava rock fields in the vicinity.  After making my way back down the mountain, I headed towards my bed for the night.  As I was driving, I made the decision that I was moving on a day early.  Originally I had planned for 2 days at Tongariro, and I probably would have been fine doing one more day there, but the weather was looking to be poor, meaning rain and clouds.  I decided instead to leave and make my way to Wellington.

New Zealand countryside

On the way to Wellington, I pulled into Waitarere Beach, to take in the beach!  It had been raining off and on all drive, and when I arrived at the beach it was in an off phase.  I wandered out there to the water and stuck my feet in just to my ankles.  At that level the water seemed lukewarm to moderately warm.  I suppose in part because it was a Thursday and kids are still in school and the weather wasn't great, I ended up on the beach alone until an old, stoop-shouldered man in red swimming trunks ran out to the water and hopped in.  After about 15-20 minutes, the rain turned back on so I turned to head back to the car.

Waitarere Beach

I also stopped by Otaki River Gorge.  Not much to say there except there was a lot of water flowing, and I was glad I had rented an small SUV instead of car as the gravel roads would have made me a bit nervous on a lower wheelbase.

Otaki River Gorge

I continued my drive south to Wellington in pouring rain.  The Wellington area is very hilly.  I hadn't realized that.  A lot of the houses have that San Francisco look too, so between the hills and the houses, it is almost like San Francisco.  It also seems to have a lot less skyscrapers than Auckland, which surprised me.  Maybe it's the terrain, or maybe this part of the country is more earthquake prone, so they build shorter.  For the record, Wellington is actually the capital of New Zealand, not Auckland.  They consider Auckland to be the financial capital.

Since I had been planning to stay up at Tongariro for a second day, I didn't actually have a hotel booked in Wellington, so I just headed to where I had booked for my night the following day, and asked if they happened to have a room available, and the good news was they did!  So I am able to stay in the same room for two nights in Wellington before taking the ferry across the strait to the South Island.

Recognize that tree behind Merry?

After getting the room figured out, I set out for what seems to be called the Mount Victoria Town Belt.  Basically it is a park, up on a ridge.  So why set out for this park, other than it is always nice to go to a city park?  Lord of the Rings, of course!  This whole trip is a LOTR Pilgrimage!  The scenes in The Fellowship of Ring including the four hobbits' fall to the shortcut to mushrooms continuing to where Frodo yells for everyone to "Get off the road!" because the Nazgul are coming were shot in this park.  There were at least 4 other people on the pilgrimage, so I wasn't alone.  There are also some scenes from the extended edition with Frodo smoking in a tree and then him and Sam camping out before they cross paths with Merry and Pippin, which were shot in the park.  The big tree the 4 hide under when the Nazgul arrive was a prop so it doesn't actually exist, but I found trees that are movie stars in the area.

The spot where the hobbits hide from the Nazgul minus the tree and roots.

I then went wandering for some supper.  I ate at a great Italian place and then got to get wet walking back to the hotel in the rain, because of course I forgot to grab my raincoat when leaving for supper.

This morning I got up and headed for Weta Workshop, where they built the props and prosthetics for Lord of the Rings and a 150 other films, including some Marvel films and the Chronicles of Narnia.  They have loads of old props sitting around, but you also get to look into the workshop where they are working on props for new films.  Some of what they do is actual metalwork, like real swords, but others are plastic replicas because they don't want the nice swords getting too dinged up while shooting, and they're a lot heavier.  A lot of the chainmail they used for LOTR was actually plastic because real chainmail is heavy.  But there was one actor who requested to shoot in proper chainmail...give you one guess as to who that was.  They also had the actual Sauron costume there, and it is huge!  They had two swords on display from the live action Mulan, which they worked on.  One was the actual sword used for most of the film, while the other was a larger, super-polished one so they could get Mulan's reflection in them (it doesn't surprised me that Mulan used Weta, because the director of that film is a Kiwi).  Overall the workshop tour was neat because they did a good job of explaining what sort of work they do and why.  Also, no pictures in most of the Workshop, so I don't have much to show.

After the tour, I headed to the coast of the peninsula that Weta Worshop sits on.  There is a trail leading up to some old bunkers from the early 1900s.  Prior to the English arriving, it was used as Maori fortifications because they too, realized it was the perfect spot to keep an eye on people coming into the harbor.

After dropping my car back off at the hotel, I walked along the waterfront before cutting over to take the cable car to the top of another park.  But first I had to stop by a money exchange because about a month ago, Capital One switched my debit card for my checking account to being Discover-based instead of Mastercard-based, and guess what doesn't work here?  Discover, of course, because it's not accepted anywhere despite what their ads say.  Knowing this might be a possibility I brought some US cash to exchange.  I don't know how much I'll need it, but it will likely be necessary for doing laundry and if I want some fresh fruit from the roadside.

Busy going up, not so busy going down.

But after doing that, I took the cable car up to the top and took a nice, long, slow walk through the Wellington Botanical Garden.  The gardens aren't so much like Botanica, but a lot of native plants making a sort of wild garden.

Wellington Botanical Garden

Today is Friday here, meaning of course that it is Black Friday.  Except they don't do Thanksgiving here, so Black Friday doesn't exist, right?  Wrong!  Everywhere is having Black Friday sales, except they seem to mostly be running from Thursday to Monday or Friday to Monday.  Funny!

New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: Hobbiton, Where Dreams Come True

One Ring to Rule Them All

One Ring to Find Them

One Ring to Bring Them All

And in the Darkness Bind Them

[Cue up Concerning Hobbits (LOTR: FOTR) on repeat]

The Lord of the Rings...the real reason I came to New Zealand.  25+ years ago, the great Peter Jackson set out to make the greatest New Zealand tourism campaign of all time.  I never actually saw the films in theaters.  I want to say it was probably 2004 when I saw them for the first time.  I ended up watching all the bonus content on the DVDs and was drawn to the country of New Zealand...my destiny was set.  The funny thing was while I had read The Fellowship of the Ring, I didn't get through all 3 of the books until a couple of years ago.  And when I finished them, I thought, well, they're fine, but I can watch the movies and be happier.  When I was in high school every December my dad had a Christmas party out in Hays.  It was too far to travel home after the party so they would get a hotel room, and because they felt me and my brother were too young to stay home alone over night those first few years, we went along and stayed at the hotel, played in the pool and watched tv.  The weekend of this Christmas party, always seemed to be the weekend TNT Network was airing its Lord of the Rings Marathon, and I'd always turn it on.  Thus The Lord of the Rings became a Christmas movie.  I wouldn't necessarily call myself obsessed with the films or books, I'm no Stephen Colbert.  I'm not even my Uncle Dave.  I like them for their cinematography and their score, almost as much as the content.  They're just good.  And worth planning a whole trip around.

But before we get to Hobbiton, let's start with my morning.  In the morning I had a cave tubing excursion planned at the Waitomo Glowworm Caves.  I unfortunately don't have any pictures because I couldn't bring a camera along, but the caves are filled with a dark night sky of bioluminescent worms.  There are a couple of caves in New Zealand that have them, but this one was known for being the best.  I figured why walking through a cave, when you can tube through it.  It was a blast.  Our group of 12 and 3 guides bundled up in thick wetsuits, wetsuit boots, and then what some might call Wellingtons, and helmets with headlamps on them.  It wasn't just a simple hop in your tube at one end and chill sort of tour.  It was more up, down, rushing water, jump off a small waterfall, look at the pretty glowing lights, get up, jump off a waterfall, crawl over some rocks, float in your tube, walk though waist deep water, float, sort of trip.  I glow is so neat and the only part about doing the float trip though the cave instead of walking is that means I don't have pictures.  Oh well.

Anyways, now onto the highlight of the day!  Hobbiton!

A Gandalf-sized Hobbit Hole

I set out for Hobbiton a bit early, because I didn't want to miss anything due to traffic, plus it gave me time to go through the gift shop.  To get to Hobbiton you have to travel down Buckland Rd, which was named that before Peter Jackson found his Hobbiton on it.  You eventually reach The Shire's Rest, the tour kickoff point.  From there tours go out on buses.  They have a number of tours and tour/meal options.  You can go for Second Breakfast, Lunch, or the Evening Banquet.  I did the latter.

The neat thing about going for the Evening Banquet meant we were the last tour group of the day.  By the time we got there, the last tour groups were finishing up, so we got the place to ourselves, perfect for taking pictures.  

Looking down over Hobbiton from near Bag End

Hobbiton as it is today is different from back when they were filming the original Lord of the Rings. After they finished filming LOTR, they took down Hobbiton.  But when they decided to make The Hobbit films, they needed Hobbiton again, and this time instead of making it out of styrofoam, they made it out of real wood and stone so they would be able to keep it around and make it a real opportunity for the fans to visit.  

The Green Dragon 

The attention to detail is amazing.  There are, I believe, 44 hobbit holes and each one is different.  The idea is that it is a real town, and each hobbit hole is tailored to the job of the hobbits within.  The apothecary hobbit has lots of medicinal plants in its garden.  And the bee keeping honey hobbit has lots of flowering plants bees would love.  There is bread "for sale" out front of the baker's hole.  It is just amazing.

Would you like some honey?

Hobbits live in a hierarchical society, so the higher up the side of the hill you are, the better off you are.  Bilbo & Frodo Baggins live at Bag End up on top of the hill in a massive house (no wonder the Sackville Baggins' want it so badly).  And speaking of Bag End, the tree up on top of it is the only tree on the site and in the film that isn't real.  All the rest are.

Bag End

Some of the holes are small for Gandalf purposes, and others are 90% scale or Hobbit size.  Speaking of Gandalf, there was a guy who brought his Gandalf costume and walked around dressed as Gandalf.  Another woman had a very nice hobbit costume, minus the feet.  It was such fun!  Everyone on the tour had actually seen the films or read the books, which our guide said was rather unusual.  

Home of Samwise Gamgee, or Samwise the Brave

While nearly all the holes are just facades with no insides, they recently finished building two holes with interiors.  They were stunning!  I want to live there!  It was massive inside.  I took video so eventually I'll string all those pieces together to share in one video.  

Inside one of the two hobbit holes that are actually finished.

The gardeners who work at Hobbiton are amazing.  Imagine that being your job!  Our guides say they are constantly working on the flowers and plants to make sure they look nice.  Depending on the time of year you'll find different plants and flowers blooming.  Since it is late spring here right now, the flower were gorgeous and in full bloom.

We finished the tour walking past the Mill and over the arched bridge.  It all just feels so real, it is amazing.

The Mill and arched bridge, complete with a hobbit on the bridge.

After we concluded the tour we ended up down at the Green Dragon.  The one with the catchy tune you hear Merry and Pippin singing at Edoras.  🎵 You can keep your fancy ales/you can drink them by the flagon/but the only brew for the brave and true/comes from the Green Dragon 🎶  At the Green Dragon you can get your complementary drink.  They had a couple of beers, an alcoholic apple cider, a ginger beer, and then also some New Zealand wines and Coke.  We were able to enjoy our drinks as the sun was getting ready to set.

The Green Dragon

Then they called us in for the feast!  It was stunning!  My one disappointment was no one broke into a dwarf tune at the table.  The food was so good and I stuffed myself!  I could barely fit in dessert!  The dinner was served family style with all sorts of food being passed around.  Stew, lamb, pies, and of course po-tay-toes!  While eating dinner, one person at our table said she was looking through some of her photos and they look so fake, even though she knows they're real because she took them!  

After dinner was over we walked back through portions of Hobbiton with our lanterns, over to the Party Tree.  There we had a moment of reflection of sorts about how Tolkien created this world that people all over the world can enjoy, and how it brought us all to New Zealand.  They had us turn off our lanterns for a moment and with a clear night sky, it was so beautiful.  

Hobbiton at dusk

It was such an amazing night and I'm so glad I made it down here.  That in itself would have been enough for me.  But now I'm off to find other LOTR filming sites and enjoy other things as I make my way towards the south of the North Island.

The Party Tree in the Party Field.  Yes it's real

New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: Turn Signals Not Windshield Wipers

 Kia ora!  That means "welcome" in te reo Maori, the Maori language, and you see it everywhere here.  As I started driving today I got to thinking about how in a way, the names of the towns here are like in the US, where you have a mix of English name towns and Maori named towns, so you have Hamilton and Rotorua, and back home you have Newton and Wichita (English and Native American).

My dad said I looked happy when I sent this photo from the Denver airport...well, duh Dad, I'm traveling!

Anyways, let's go back to Thursday afternoon.  After saying "see ya next year" to everyone at work, I headed back home to do the last of the chores (garbage) and grab my suitcase.  I got to the airport somewhat early and spent a while walking around.  All I can say is thank goodness I wasn't flying through Dallas or on American Airlines!  DFW was in the middle of a ground stop due to storms and all the flights there on American were canceled.  There was even a flight from Salt Lake City heading to Dallas that got rerouted to Wichita after circling over north Texas 7 times.  They had been in the air for 7 hours by the time they got to Wichita!  But the good news was I was heading the Denver on United so all was good!

I got to Denver, picked up my suitcase, and then headed to the check-in counter to see if I could move my flight from Denver to LAX for the following day.  The way it was set, I had just a 2h 40m layover in LA, and I was a bit nervous about it because it was a hair on the short side for an international flight and I don't know my way around LAX.  I was able to move my flight from 4pm to 11:30am and all was good.  I headed to the hotel for a good night's sleep (so rare before flying).  The following morning I headed back to the airport, checked my bag through to Auckland, and found my gate (it was still there!) before wandering a bit.  My flight to LAX was good and when we landed in LA a check airman came on over the loudspeaker to congratulate our First Officer on his first flight on an Airbus A321neo.  It made me laugh because that is obviously not something you tell the people on your plane before taking off ("hey, so your First Officer on this flight is brand new to this airplane!  Give him some encouragement!"), but afterwards it is all good.

And let me tell you, after landing in LA, all I can say is I am soooo glad I had the extra time.  That airport is a mess and difficult to get around.  Now, some of the problem may be due to construction happening at one of the terminals.  But what that meant was to get from Terminal 6 to the International Terminal, you had to take a shuttle bus and then you're walking through corridors and you have no idea where you're going.  After grabbing food I started a sort of routine of walking up and down the terminal, and then sitting down for a while with a book, rinse and repeat.  And then they started getting ready to board, and I realized I was at the wrong gate.  I was on NZ5, not NZ3!  That meant I had another hour!

Relaxing on my SkyCouch.  I'm not sure in any other airline besides Air New Zealand does this, but it is literally the reason I chose to fly with them.  You got a little pad and 2 big pillows, plus the 3 little pillows and blankets for your seats.  There were footrests that came out to fill in the pitch between the seats, and a belt so you could stay strapped in while laying down.  Since it's only about 5' long, you still have to curl up a bit, but still pretty comfortable. 

When I finally got on my plane I was excited to checkout this SkyCouch I had reserved.  Basically, for an extra $1000, I was able to book all 3 seats in the row, which allowed me turn it into a bed.  Normally, I wouldn't shell out for something like that, but this is a special adventure with special funding, and I knew I would have a full day once I landed in Auckland because the flight was set to land at 6:05am.  And it worked out great!  I watched a few episodes of The Pitt (loved it, but I'm also an ER girl) and then settled down for the night, where I actually got some restful sleep on a plane for a change.  We arrived like 40 mins early.  I picked up my bag (once again NZ3 was throwing me off because I ended up at the wrong baggage carousel) and headed through their strict customs/declarations area.  Because they want to keep stuff out of NZ that could cause the islands harm, they inspected my hiking gear (boots and trekking poles).  If they hadn't passed their muster, they would have gone into their biohazard lab and been cleaned.

They have a pool (harbor water) right on the harbor where you can wade or swim laps, with the whole view of Auckland behind you.  The bridge on the left is a draw bridge for the boats in the harbor.

From there I headed to catch a bus into Auckland and then walked to my hotel.  Amazingly enough, I was able to get checked into my hotel for a $60NZ fee (roughly $34).  This meant I was able to shower and get myself cleaned up before heading out to explore.  I walked a lot of miles around the harbour (with a U).  On one pedestrian street there was a large Christmas tree, and a street performer doing a balancing and juggling fire act.  He got a kid from the crowd to help him out with some things and you'll never guess what her name was...Arwen.  An Arwen right in New Zealand!  Perfect!  Eventually, I realized I was hungry and found a food hall.  I love food halls and this one is a doozy.  A huge variety of foods from Argentinean (I had empenadas for lunch) to Italian (supper) to Greek and Chinese and Korean and burgers and Mexican and just dumplings.  So many options!  I will be going back there and trying others when I am back in Auckland at the end of my trip.  After getting some food, I felt I was ready to keel over, so I went back and took a nap.  A series of 30m alarms, turned into roughly a 2h long nap.  I got up at 5:30, went to the SkyTower, which is their tall Space Needle-like tower.  The views of the city and harbor were great!  Then it was time for supper and bed.

New Zealand is apparently known for their boat and yacht building.

This morning I got up and after showering, wandered to a Woolworths to get something for breakfast (banana bread).  Then I packed up and started the mile or so walk to the car rental place.  Driving was something I was somewhat nervous about because I've never driven on the wrong side of the road before.  In fact, I've only ever experienced being on the wrong side during a brief ride on a bus into Dublin and back to the airport on a long layover, and that was it.  I did remember what side to get into (win!).  I did very quickly find out that having your steering wheel on the opposite side of the the car also means your windshield wipers and turn signals are swapped.  Today I probably turned on my windshield wipers about 50 times when I meant to turn on my turn signal.  Once on the roads though, it wasn't so bad because you just go with the flow of traffic.  It wasn't until later when I was on smaller, less busy roads that I had to think more about what side I had to be driving on.

The area of Pirongia Forest Park in the background.

But even with my driving worries, I made it safely to Pirongia Forest Park.  The plan was to do a shorter nature trail (with signs!) and then try one of the longer trails up towards Ruapane summit, one of a series of extinct volcanoes in the area.  I knew from the beginning that actually making it up Ruapane was a long-shot.  I was short on water due to not having had the chance to fill up my water bladder in my hiking bag, so I only had 750 mL.  And since I hadn't been to a grocery store since getting my car, I hadn't had a chance to get snacks, and every hiker knows snacks and water are the two most important things for a hike.  The nature walk part was pretty and easy.  I then started up the trail to Ruapane, which started with about 100 steep steps and some mud.  The steps would come back every once in a while, but at other times it was fairly flat.  But over time I started to feel the fact I was conserving water and didn't have snacks.  And after sitting down to rest twice in a short period of time, and knowing that the worst part of the trail was yet to come, I made the decision to turn around.  I was probably about 2/3rds of the way there, but it's better not to be dumb on day 2 of your trip.

I made my way back down and then headed towards Hamilton, my home for the next two nights.  I stopped at the PakNSave for some snacks and food on the way and heard Lorde's Royals on the radio in the store which was perfect (she's a Kiwi).  I did not buy any kiwi at the store.  Tomorrow is the Waitomo Cave and Hobbiton!

P.S. Please know if you find typos or errors, that's because I don't go back and proofread these.

New Zealand Middle Earth Epic: I'm Going on an Adventure!

 In less than a week, I am set to leave on the biggest trip of my life.  I will be heading off to New Zealand on a 6 week vacation!  I have been obsessed with the idea of a trip to New Zealand since the country participated in the best ad campaign they could have possibly created: The Lord of the Rings films.  I was probably about 14 the first time I saw the films and have since had a yearly tradition of watching the films every December (I moved that up to late October this year).  Seeing the scenery in those films made me want to visit the country someday because it looked so beautiful.  It also doesn't hurt New Zealand that one of my top 5 films of all time is Whale Rider, which is also set in New Zealand.

My out-of-office board at my desk!

This trip is one that has been in works for a number of years.  Six or 7 years ago I noticed that every so often our work calendar lines up for a long Christmas break, and with just 3 1/2 weeks of vacation I could turn the Thanksgiving to Christmas time period into a long vacation.  Add in that extra three days prior to Thanksgiving and you can get 5 more days of vacation!  Plus, with my 9/80 schedule, I get a bonus day as I have the Friday before I leave off as well!  So after looking a few years ahead on my work calendar I realized 2025 was the year to make it happen!  I asked my boss a year ago if it would maybe be possible to take off the entire time between Thanksgiving and Christmas and he said sure...as long as I could manage to survive without trips throughout the rest of the year (I managed...barely!), so the stage was set.  

With that long look ahead, I was able to save up a bunch of money for this trip, so it is not a budget trip like many of mine are.  While I'm not staying in 5-star hotels, I won't be spending the whole trip in hostels.  Just a few here and there.  The large budget means I won't have to say no to something that I kind of wanted to do, but didn't want to spend the money on.  Because I figure this is my one trip to New Zealand, I'm doing it all!

I have spent the past 2 months worried about how the US government shutdown would impact my trip and thankfully, for my own selfish reasons, it got worked out just in time.  Now I just have to hope the weather behaves!  I fly through Denver, which is always a risk once you hit late fall, with the risk of snowstorms.  From Denver, I fly to LAX and then onto Auckland.  The flight from Los Angeles to Auckland is 13 hours, so not ask long as Dallas to Doha, but still plenty long!

I have the first 10 or so days planned out and then a concept of a plan from there.  By not planning everything to the day, I have the ability to adjust as needed.  If I need to take a day off or if I decide some place I thought would take 2 days only takes 1, I can then adjust.  I do have one must-be-there-on-a-certain-day thing about halfway through the trip, but as long as I keep an eye on that, I should be fine.

I have been working the last few weeks to tie up everything here at home.  I learned that the USPS will only hold mail for 30 days, so I had to ask my neighbor if she could pick up my mail for me.  She also agreed to watering my plants while I'm gone too.  I have been on a quest to empty out my pantry and fridge, and am proud to say I did well!  At work, I've been wrapping stuff up and compiling an email of where I'm at and what people can work on while I'm gone.

All packed!

And lastly, I am now just 115 miles from Mount Doom on my Walk With Frodo app on my Garmin watch.  On January 1st, I started the trek from The Shire, with the hope of making it to Mount Doom while I was in New Zealand.  That is definitely doable!  If I had to guess, I'll hit Mount Doom and throw The One Ring into its fires in about 20 days.  Unfortunately my timing is just slightly off, as I'll be hitting the area where they filmed Mordor scenes and the volcano that represents Mount Doom in roughly 10 days.  So for now, Frodo, Sam, and I have journeyed about 50 miles from the Tower of Cirith Ungol on our way across Mordor. 

Keep an eye here for updates as my trip continues!