One thing I’ve learned about New Zealand is that there is one Great Inevitable: Peter Jackson.  You just can’t avoid the guy. For one thing, the North Island was covered with posters having to do with the premiere of The Hobbit, which happens Wednesday in Wellington— the rest of you have to wait till December, […]

I won’t say where in my travels I encountered this, but it’s a most unusual aircraft. What do we see here?

Behold Mount Doom, or as it’s known locally, Mount Ngauruhoe.  This, wreathed ominously in cloud, was the (still active) volcano used by Peter Jackson to stand in for Orodruin in The Return of the King. I’ve been doing quite a bit of interaction with the local geology for the last few days. Kathy was down […]

So our first day off the boat and we ended up in Middle-Earth.  Specifically Hobbiton, the set built by Peter Jackson for his Tolkien-based epics. Hobbiton is near a town called Matimati, which is remodeling its information center to resemble a twee hobbit house.  The Maori carvings inside are now eclipsed by a statue of […]