The Bay of Islands is in New Zealand’s sub-tropical far north. This is the view there from the front porch of the luxurious Kimberley Lodge that overlooks the town of  Russell.    Photo by Gene Korte

New Zealand, a green and lush neighbor to the southeast of Australia in the Pacific Ocean, is long and narrow like California, though it’s divided into two main islands and is overall smaller than the Golden State. To illustrate, at least in part, why New Zealand with its moderate climate and thousands of miles of uncrowded coastline attracts so many visitors and wannabe immigrants, its population is 2 million versus California’s 35 million.

We  traveled from the top of the North Island in the Bay of Islands, near where the British and the native Maori signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 down to Queenstown in the South Island. We visited four distinctive areas of the country in eight days. We flew over New Zealand’s interior on our way down south, sometimes crisscrossing from east to west and back again. We saw miles and miles of empty coastline and vast verdant forests with the wispy clouds that looked like the Middle-earth in the “Lord of the Rings” movies. And that’s one of the reasons we came to New Zealand — to see this new South Pacific Hollywood.

MOVIE-MAKING KIWI STYLE

While “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy is perhaps the best known of the recent movies made in New Zealand, recent additions are Tom Cruise’s “The Last Samurai” and “Whale Rider,” both filmed on the North Island and released in 2003.

Greeted in New Plymouth in the Taranaki region by a traditional Maori welcome, Cruise is a big hero here. He and his movie crew who did the filming in early 2003 brought in millions of dollars to the area and were good neighbors as well.

New Zealand was chosen as the site for the story that takes place in Japan in the 1870s, because Mount Taranaki looks like Japan’s Mount Fuji, the weather is pleasant, and it’s not crowded. Many Kiwis, as the New Zealanders call themselves, benefited from the Hollywood influx — homeowners who rented their houses to crew members, the car dealer who leased 262 Toyota RAV4s for the crew and hotels that were totally booked for months. The extra business even trickled down to Frances Rogers in nearby Waitara who raises dozens of varieties of peppers from the cool to the very hot. She said she provided a number of boxes of peppers for the movie crew.

We were in New Plymouth toward the end of the filming, while some sets were still intact. By cutting through someone’s yard (the person we were with said it was okay) and standing on the railroad tracks, we could see the Japanese village by the harbor. And in a valley outside of town, we viewed another Japanese village that was covered in “snow” on a warm early fall day. In addition to closeness to mountains, this area is on the coast and attracts surfers as well.

RIDING IN XENA’S CHARIOT AND TOURING THE `LORD OF THE RINGS’ FILM SITES IN QUEENSTOWN

Even before the number of movies increased, two long-running American TV programs — “Xena, Warrior Princess” and “Hercules” — were filmed on Bethell’s Beach near Auckland. Now you can go there and perhaps ride in a horse-drawn chariot with Xena’s stunt double. As the number of movies increase, so does the tourist interest. Ian Brodie’s “The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook” is New Zealand’s fastest-selling book. With the guidebook in hand, visitors can explore the locations by car, jetboat, kayak, four-wheel drive, helicopter and on foot.

Queenstown in the South Island is the adventure capital of New Zealand. The first commercial bungee jump was here. We suspect locals climb the Remarkables — the local mountain range most often seen in the “Lord of the Rings” movies –for lunch. And people pay good money to skim over shallow creeks with only inches to spare at 50 miles per hour in a 12-passenger boat powered by a 350 Chevy V-8 engine. We did that. It’s called jetboating, the kind of boat ride where you hang on to your hat and clutch the heated bar with your other hand. Our ride on the Dart River took us into regions near the filming of “Amon Hen.” For those of you who have seen the movies, that’s where Merry and Pippin were captured by the Orcs near the end of the first movie, “The Fellowship of the Ring.” On a Nomad Safaris trip, we went through Arrowtown, near Queenstown, to see yet another scene from this movie. Our driver put the Land Rover into low and drove us well into the creek-like Arrow River to the spot where, according to Brodie, “The Nazgul charged as Arwen ferried Frodo across the river on Asfaloth, her Elven steed.” Looking at both scenes takes a little imagination, as special effects makes movie scenes much grander than the real thing.

NEW ZEALAND’S LUXURIOUS LODGES

High-end boutique resorts are called lodges in New Zealand. Our travels took us to four of them in addition to Auckland’s Hilton Hotel, which is shaped like a ship, on Prince’s Wharf. The surroundings, service and dining at all of these great lodges was superb, and they each offered a variety of wines predominantly from New Zealand. The capacity for each lodge is about 10 guests, and every location was a stunning one-of-a-kind place.

The Boatshed is a lodge on Waiheke Island that overlooks the bay, a weekend-in-the-country ferry ride away from Auckland. Among its suites is the out-of-the-way Lighthouse, a favorite with honeymooners. Waiheke Island is home to a number of vineyards including Stonyridge, whose LaRose Cabernet is the most expensive wine in New Zealand.

The Bay of Islands is in New Zealand’s sub-tropical far north and home to a lodge with history and another that’s reached only by ferry. The Orongo Bay Homestead on 17 acres is the home of the first U.S. consulate in New Zealand and dates back to the 1860s. Fully restored with period furniture, it’s the only certified organic lodge in New Zealand. The nearby luxurious Kimberly Lodge overlooks the town of Russell with astounding views of the Bay of Islands. Chef Virginia Holloway offers a popular cooking class that takes guests out of the kitchen to the seashore to gather mussels from the rocks, for starters.

Outside of Queenstown is a lodge called Punatapu or Sacred Waters, as it’s known in Maori. The most unusual feature of any lodge that we saw is Punutapu’s Artist in Residence program. The well-known Kiwi artist John Bevan Ford is there currently. The artist lives in a house up the hill from the lodge quarters and invites guests to his sunny studio where he demonstrates and discusses how he does his work. He also joins in at some of the meals in the lodge and adds an interesting perspective for travelers lucky enough to stay there.

INCIDENTAL INTELLIGENCE

GETTING THERE

Air New Zealand, Web page: http://www.airnewzealand.com, or (800) 369-6867. Rated among the world’s finest international airlines by travel magazine readers, ANZ offers more direct flights to the South Pacific than any other carrier, including 17 non-stop flights a week from Los Angeles to Auckland. ANZ’s South Pacific Airpass, when combined with an international ticket, allows two to 10 stopovers to destinations in New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, the Cook Islands, Tahiti, Samoa and Tonga.

Special to The Denver Post  http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_0002569878

© 2005-2014  Diana and Gene Korte