Mission Bay and Achilles Point

December 14 in Auckland, Allie and I spent some more time with her cousin in Mission Bay for lunch and some ice cream.  We headed over to Achilles Point afterwards. While taking some photos from the overlook, another person approached me with his significant other and made a comment about my performance earlier in the week. Allie and her cousin were thoroughly confused. However, it is not an uncommon event for me to be recognized as someone I'm not. It did take me a second, but I quickly commented with a smirk to the man (while half addressing Allie), "You think you know me!"  I then politely explained to him that I wasn't who he thought and that others often confuse me for other people too. At first the man was suspicious that I claimed to not be who he thought I was, but Allie's confusion at the whole engagement allowed the interaction to end with a light chuckle by him and me.

Allie and I ended the day with dinner at a very nice Italian restaurant back in CBD called Amano, where the food and drinks were great.

Homebound

The next day, we went for a morning walk to a breakfast spot. I spotted a black and white bird.  Later that day was our our flight home. Delays to this flight involved a replaced plane since the scheduled plane had maintenance issues. However, we still made it back to San Francisco on December 15.

Also see

• Queenstown Dec 3-5 - Gondola and Central Business District
• Queenstown Dec 6 - Lord of the Rings Filming Locations Tour
• Queenstown Dec 7 - Extra day in town
• Auckland Dec 8-9 - Arrival and Exploration
• Auckland Dec 10 -  Auckland's Harbor and Newmarket Mall
• Auckland Dec 11 - Rotorua, New Zealand
• Auckland Dec 12 - Auckland Zoo and Horse Races
• Auckland Dec 13 - Hobbiton Movie Set Tour
• Auckland Dec 14-15 - Mission Bay and Achilles Point, then Home
• New Zealand South and North Islands Adventure

Humans aren't sponges!

The reason we humans are not sponges is because our ancestors were worse at being sponges than the ancestors of modern spongers. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Db38e12D6OW/

How are their Flat Earthers in Denver, of all places‽

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Da-m80XjgFR/

When I first moved to the Denver area, the location struck me as a place with geology and weather that would serve as its own evidence against flat Earth concepts, with a mountain range that extends beyond the horizon in two directions, no visibility beyond the horizon when looking Eastward (even when looking over the Great Plains from Front Range peaks), and morning and evening Sunlight that illuminates the bottom of low altitude clouds. Imagine my surprise when I found out this is a hotbed for Flat Earth nonsense. Like, do any of these people spend any time outside enjoying the beauty of the region‽

Savery Savory Mushrooms Water Tower of Westminster, CO

  

Savery Savory Mushrooms was a real company as this site, but now the only remaining structure is this water tower.  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbo8_RvjLfg/?img_index=1

Adventure in Hobbiton

To travel to Hobbiton from Auckland requires a car rental or a tour bus, similar to our previous tour to Rotorua. My choice was the tour bus option. Unfortunately, the drive on the tour bus to Hobbiton was rather annoying due to another passenger who was a know-it-all that disrupted the tour guide's chatter with an endless series of inane questions (apparently, to which this person already knew most of the answers). Besides that, the Hobbiton tour itself was definitely a highlight of our New Zealand trip.

The day of our trip (December 13) was mostly sunny, which offered a spectacular backdrop for the tour. We got to see dozens of Hobbit homes. I love the Hobbit story, and the films, so this was a special treat. Many of the Hobbit homes were sized for forced perspective during filming, while many others were sized at nearly human scale for filming close-up shots with the actors.

We took a lot of photos. In some photos, we appeared slightly larger than a Hobbit would next to their home, but in other shots, we were giants. The Hobbiton tour guide was genuinely entertaining. He bared a striking similarity to David Tenet. 

The amount of detail for each home exterior is amazing. Even more detail was present in the Hobbit home interior that we also toured.

After the Hobbiton tour and return to our transport back to Auckland, we had one additional stop at the reservoir on Waikato River. Unfortunately, the ride back to Auckland was with that same know-it-all, but overall, the adventure was great!

 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Db1JxYTINd3/?img_index=1

Type 8 traversing Notable Stellar Phenomenon

 

Flying my Type 8 through a deep red hued cloud with exobiological lifeforms at a Notable Stellar Phenomena in Elite Dangerous. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/Dbo0eirDrAf/?img_index=1