Hobbiton and Rotorua

The Kiwi bus makes two stops between Waitomo and Rotorua. The first is Karangahake Gorge, which is quite stunning but unfortunately the walk is cut short by a locked gate. Oh well, onto the next stop: Hobbiton!

A wee bit of context: Whilst location scouting for the Lord of the Rings trilogy in the late 90's (I know right), Peter Jackson and his crew settled on farmland close to the small town of Matamata for the setting of Hobbiton, the home of Bilbo, Frodo and the other Hobbits. The farmer who owned the land agreed and the film crew set to work building the 'holes in the ground' wherein the hobbits live. After filming the set was dismantled, and only the shells of the holes remained. Yet, people would travel from around the world just to stand in Hobbiton and see these modern relics. At the end of the naughties, PJ came back with his crew and rebuilt the set for the disappointing Hobbit trilogy. This time, however, they decided to leave the set as is and charge people to enter, thereby making *loads* of cash.

The bus drops us off at the gift shop which is fine and we also grab a bite to eat. Another bus then takes you to the set, complete with a video introduction from Peter Jackson. The famous score from the films is also played. We're introduced the site by an impressively enthusiastic tour guide, who takes us through a path and suddenly...we're in Hobbiton. That's the path that Bilbo runs out of shouting 'I'm going on an adventure' and that Frodo and Gandalf ride in on. Stepping into the fictional world is very awesome. This isn't like a Universal studios reconstruction, this is the real deal, and the attention to detail is quite amazing. We walk around all the various hobbit-holes, including Bilbo's own Bagend, and our tour guide gives us lots of interesting factoids. The tour ends at the pub for a ginger beer. The village feels bigger in the films, but I guess that's just movie magic. As a result, the tour is quite short but it was a great experience nonetheless. We head into Rotorua, find our hostel and hit the hay.

Bagend

To be fair, they are designed for Hobbits

Rotorua is famous for a number of geothermic sites, so we make a booking through a discount website to go to a site called Wai-O-Tapu. It's first thing in the morning, so we get up and go straight to the information site. When the driver arrives, he asks us if we booked through bookme, to which we say yes. He then asks how we did this. We're not sure how to answer this question. It turns out that the deal wasn't meant to be on the site this month. He then asks us what we think he should do. I'm not sure what he expected us to say so I suggested he just let us on the bus and speak to bookme later, to which he agreed.

On our way up to the site we stop at a bubbling mud pool. It's just the first of many cool geothermic things we see today. as we're leaving I notice a girl I sort of recognise. I hear her name, Heidi, from one of her friends. "Excuse me, you're not from Evesham, are you?" I ask and all three look at me in disbelief. Turns out I worked with this Heidi in a cinema around 3 years ago. Crazy small world. 

We go up to the site for a short explore, before it's time to see the Lady Grey Geyser erupt. They trigger the eruption by adding some natural soap to the Geyser. It's a gradual process but eventually the slight bubbling turns into a full erupting, and the foamy water goes several meters in the air, and this goes on for quite some time. We then go back to walk around the rest of the park. It's full of boiling water pits, crazy coloured rocks and lakes and gaseous mist. It's a somewhat other-worldly experience which we both enjoy.

A right geyser

The champagne pool didn't taste as advertised

Lovely beach?

When we get back into town we go to the i-site to research more things to do. We have heard about the Buried Village, which is part museum and part actual site of a village that was decimated in a volcanic eruption. We think this sound good, like a sort of mini-Pompeii and so we ask the best way of getting there. The cheapest way is to rent a car. I was reluctant to rent a car whilst travelling, but Rotarua is a fairly quiet place so I put my driving worries aside and go for it. I pick up the car and drive it back to the hostel (after getting used to the automatic transmission in the parking lot) and we make a plan for the next day.

The first thing we drive to is the Ogo. Ogo is zorbing. I don't think there is a distinction, I can only think that there's some copyright issue. This particular Ogo is one where the smaller sphere has some water, thereby keeping you (roughly) in one place as the larger sphere tumbles down a straight track on a hill. It's a great thrill. After this, we head to a maze. I still don't know why we went to a maze, but we did. We have some time to kill before our booking at the buried village, so we decide to take the car out to some of the lakes out of town. We go to Lake Tarawara and begin walking round. Little did we know that the full walk is 5-7 hours long, and we have to head back after 45 minutes to make our slot at the Buried Village.

The village begins with the museum, where alarm bells started. It's an impressive museum, don't get me wrong, but there's so much detail about the eruption and the lives it affected I can't help feel they're reaching. We start walking around the alarm bells get louder. Essentially there really isn't much of the village other than a few holds in the ground where houses once stood and a few stones. They've rebuilt some shacks to show what they would have looked like. The walk ends up being quite nice, with an impressive waterfall at the end, but we can't help but feel a bit ripped off by this. As attractions go it was a fairly pricey one (something they like justifying by saying it's "privately owned")...I could have gone on the Ogo again! To make up for the disappointment we drive the car about a bit and visit some of the other lakes around the area. The scenery here is particularly beautiful and even just driving (which I normally don't enjoy) is a treat. 

We then had a very chilled weekend in town. We went to the cinema (The Accountant, 6.8/10) and watched the rugby with a fry-up breakfast. Attempting to upload all my photos I managed to deleted roughly two weeks worth of photos from my camera which I'm very upset about. I keep telling myself the trip isn't the photo album (or vice-versa) but I've wiped Hobbiton, my Ogo video and loads of great panoramics. As mentioned last post, the snaps above are from Heidi's camera and my next post should be back to mine.

Next time - Taupo and River Valley.

Mission Bay, Hot Water Beach and Waitomo

(Note: On trying to upload all my photos and videos, I accidentally deleted about two weeks worth of them. I was livid. The photos below are Heidi's)

On returning to Auckland we stay in a different hostel in the middle of town. We get back on the Sunday, with a plan to sort out our bank account (which we started in Paihia) and Tax numbers the following day. However, we quickly find out on Monday that it's a public holiday, and the bank and post office will both be shut. We opt to do precisely nothing instead. On Tuesday we get this admin sorted out (which included a lengthy trip to a dreadful post office) then go to our new temporary home in an area of the city called Mission Bay.

We are staying the rest of the week with Mike and Eva. We discovered the couple on Cultural Exchange, which is the sister website of WWOOF, and is so similar you wonder why they need to be separate (something to do with the organic farming element). On locating their house through the rain, we're met by Eva, a super friendly French lady with excellent cooking skills. She gives us some tips for the surrounding area and some things in Auckland we missed. The deal for accommodation is the same as WWOOF - we are asked to do a few hours of work every day. We get up late Thursday morning and get to it. I'm on the power washer, cleaning the patio and driveway whilst Heidi sweeps. We then go on a jaunt to better  familiarise ourselves with Mission Bay. It's a very nice, chilled area and feels like a small town of itself, rather than a district of the city. The centrepiece is its sprawling beach, facing out towards the volcanic island of Rangitoto (more on this later).

When we get back we briefly meet Mike, but then I'm heading out to check out Mission Bay's art deco cinema to see Woody Allen's Cafe Society. It's pretty great. Mike and Eva have gone out so when I get back from the cinema, Heidi has cooked dinner. When Mike and Eva get back they set out a deal - we can have Friday off if we work a full day Saturday whilst they are there. 

After a few hours work the next day (Thursday) we go into the centre of Auckland and go to the art museum and the Auckland Domain, which is a Giant park. Not much to say here, to be honest. On our full day off we take the ferry to Rangitoto Island. This is Auckland's latest Island, being only 600 years young. It's a steep walk to the top (and it was pretty hot) but the views from the top were stunning. It's an interesting walk as well, seeing plant life trying to grow through the volcanic rock.

At the top of Rangitoto

The main highlight of this week was Mike and Eva themselves. We felt so comfortable in their home and this was due to them both being incredibly warm and friendly to the two backpacking strangers who'd emailed them a few days before. On Sunday, they had friends over for lunch whilst Heidi and I went to the cinema (Doctor Strange this time, 7/10) and by the evening, they were quite inebriated on red wine. It's the first time on the trip I've been a bit sad I'm not drinking, because I would have loved to have joined them.

Many, many months ago whilst planning the trip we booked a hop-on hop-off bus ticket with a company called Kiwi Experience. Monday is the first day we'll be hopping on one of these buses at 8.30 in the morning. Journey number 1 is to Hot Water Beach. The idea here is that because the Earth's crust is so thin, the water just under the sand can be quite hot. So, by digging a small hole in the ground you can make your own hot pool on the beach. This is easier said than done, not least when there are only a few places you can dig and 100 people are trying to do the same. Still, we do manage to get the gist (I think I burnt my foot at one point, occasionally it feels like stepping on an oven hob). Later on in the day, the coach takes us down to Cathedral Cove. This includes a great coastal walk. Cathedral Cove is a rather beautiful spot, as is a smaller area Heidi and I venture to called Stingray Bay. Unfortunately this turns out to only be a name because it's actually a delta we don't see any stingray. As it's Halloween, Heidi and I watch Friday the 13th for the first time back at the hostel.

Inside Cathedral Cove

Journey number 2 on the Kiwi Experience is to Waitomo Caves. On the way here we stop off at a gorge for a walk but after a short stroll we come to a locked gate. It was still very pretty. The caves at Waitomo are quite famous, and numerous companies have taken advantage of these natural wonders. For the more adventurous, you can do black water rafting, ziplining, tubing and abseiling in these caves, but the thing we're most interested in is seeing the glowworms. We're booked on a tour at 3. We're part of a small group and take the journey through the hilly countryside to the first of two caves. We're led in by our tour guide, hard hats with headtorches equipped, into the cave. After a short walk, we're asked to switch off our headtorches and we begin to see the glowworms...thousands of them. At this point they look like hundreds of small LED lights in the ceiling of the cave. We head further into the cave and hop aboard a small dingy, which floats down the river. Once again, we're asked to turn off our headtorches so that our eyes adjust. Our guide then smacks the side of the boat loudly and the cave lights up with thousands of glowworms. Now they remind me more of space, tiny flickers of light amongst the darkness.

After floating up and down the river for a bit we head to the second cave which is a natural showcase of interesting rock formations. I can't really say much more about this as I'm no expert, but it was pretty cool. After we're dropped back off we go to the pub where we eventually have an overpriced dinner (seriously, there is very little in Waitomo) then head off to bed.

Mancave

Next time - Rotorua (including Hobbiton!)