Coromandel – As we moved through the North Island we found a more and more commercialized, tourist-ized New Zealand; I must admit that this did not leave me in any great hope for the remainder of our last week here, as we approached the Mecca of all Lord of the Rings tourism – Hobbiton – before reaching our final stop on the Coromandel peninsula. But New Zealand, it seemed, had a few last tricks up her sleeve – and these last few spots could be paradise.
Hobbiton is sublime. On walking up the garden path (the one Bilbo runs down while screaming “I’m going on an adventure!”) and catching sight of the Party Tree over the hill, I was filled with the same deep bubble of emotion I felt when seeing the place in The Fellowship of the Ring, twelve years ago – a weird, touching, and very resonant sense that I had walked in this place in my mind and in my dreams, and the people of New Zealand had somehow found a way to build it out of wood and stone. The ensuing two hours were like nothing so much as a waking dream – we bagged a good tour guide, who bent a few rules for us, and we all ended the tour in the Green Dragon, which has been newly built out as a working tavern – meaning that we three, Dave and Demetre and I, concluded our pilgrimage across NZ sitting by the fire in a pub that is both made up and real, one table over from the cat, and enjoyed half-pints of good ale (and a meat pie, natch). It was surreal enough, and powerful enough, to nearly bring tears to my eyes.
That place. The reverence that overcame me and Dave particularly, as we laid our hands on Sam’s letterbox, as we looked up at the ancient Party Tree, as we sat in front of that brilliant green door – whose colour, I swear to you, no camera was able to precisely capture. The silence afterwards, as the bus took us away – I couldn’t bring myself to look back at Bag End, could not allow myself one final incomplete glance. The bus trundled on.
Then it was a long, leisurely drive across country to Coromandel, and up into yet another verdant wonderland of towering peaks and lush green rainforest, before pulling into Hahei as the gloaming fell, and driving two blocks past our hostel to arrive once again at the sea – and those white sand beaches, and those spires of rock out in the bay, and all around, a vast, deepening sky. I walked that beach as night fell, and listened to music, and something I have carried with me all this way finally broke – and I looked out across the sea at Toronto, and looked down at the surf as the push and pull of the tides created the perfect vertigo of the whole world slipping away.
And then I listened to a song – three times – and right then and there, it all felt done. The stars last night – you would not believe your eyes.
Running jokes in need of retirement:
The “ferry/fairy” spelling joke
The “Hey, Mike!” joke
The “Have you ever been kissed, Demetre, like really kissed?” joke
Permanent additions to the lingo:
Katie
Pie O’Clock
Lord of the Rings location check:
The Dimholt Road (The Paths of the Dead)
The Old Forest
Stone Street Studios (so, Everything Else)
Hobbiton.
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