Climb Little Hobbits

After catching the ferry back across to the north island the night before we collected Jed and Annah from the airport in Wellington and found just the right amount of time to squeeze in the compulsory holy Drexels brekkie.

There we spilled the beans that we had managed to book tickets to see the Hobbit on its release day at the embassy cinema in the evening. The embassy cinema is where the star studded world premier took place just under 2 weeks ago, and with the film shot in NZ and the director a Wellingtonian there almost certainly isn’t a more appropriate cinema in the world to watch the latest of Peter Jacksons creations.

Stuffed out on pancakes and poached eggs we headed out in search of an opportunity to throw it all back up at the adrenaline forest just north of the city centre. The forest is a network of giant redwood trees connected by high wires and obstacles suspended 30 meters in the air to traverse across.

First came the standard NZ style safety briefing from the kid on work experience in a Xmas elf hat sporting bright red eyes clearly still recovering from a heavy night out. We were kitted out with harnesses that had 2 caribinas on and a pulley device that you had to attach to the wires to fly down across the forest. We would be totally responsible for our own safety and ensuring that we were always clipped on with both caribinas moving them one at a time as we negotiated the various courses. With slightly jelly legs we began on course number 3 about 10 meters above the ground following each other one by one.

After we moved up to level 4 which got a bit hairy and after a team pep talk committed to level 5 of the 6 requiring nerves of steel. Unfortunately though about half way through level 5 both my and nays nerves turned to spaghetti and so did our legs. Unable to confidently complete some of the insanely difficult obstacles we clipped on our pulleys to pull ourselves across instead. I was following Nay and in the beautiful canopy of the tree tops trying to hold myself together whilst hearing in the background snippets from Naomi’s critically acclaimed new soundtrack “Blasphemy’s of a Tree Climber”.

After all that Jed still had the balls of steel to continue and complete level 6 and finish the entire course - a massive achievement. An awesome activity that tested just about every fear there is…except for spiders. If I’d encountered a spider up there it would have probably tipped me over the edge and I’d likely have unclipped myself and performed a graceful Tom Daley tuck and roll dive straight down into the ground.

Back in the city we refuelled with much deserved foot long meatball subways before taking up our seats at the packed out embassy cinema to watch the Hobbit. The cinema is grand and beautiful, and it was hard not to think about weather Bilbo or Frodo had sat in the very seat you were now sitting in just 2 weeks ago. Of course its more likely that the buttocks that shared the seat were those of a 15 stone greasy big mac loving production engineer but it’s more comforting when you’re sat there to hope and pray that it was the cheeks of Cate Blanchette instead…although the fact that she’s the only woman in the movie swings the odds back in favour of a fat bloke.

The film was in 3D and shot at 48 frames per second, twice that of normal 3D which makes the picture super sharp, but it almost felt too over enhanced and some scenes had what felt like the feel of a high graphics computer game than a movie. It did make some scenes though stunningly beautiful, aided of course by the backdrop canvas of the picturesque New Zealand landscape.

A great spectacle and a great end to the first day of our action packed Jed and Annah vs. NZ adventure.