The Travelling Bumbleweeds: Hobbits and Rays

So we realised when we were leaving Coromandel that we had missed a vital piece of our New Zealand Tour. Hobbiton of course. For those of you who do not know, the Lord of the Rings films were filmed in New Zealand and the set for Hobbiton lies just outside of Matamata, about 2 hours drive south of Auckland. We altered our route slightly and swung by. We spent a few days getting there and visited a few backwater towns like Te Aroha, home of the most pathetic geyser in the world, I've seen water pistols with more force.

Hobitton itself was great, it included a tour across scenic countryside before a guided tour around the set itself. The film The Hobbit was filmed recently so the entire set was exactly as it appears in the films, complete with 53 hobbit holes. We danced on the party field by the party tree, and saw inside Frodo's house, Bag End. After a few hours hobbitting around the tour ended and we returned to the Shires Rest Cafe where we fed some sheep. It was a very fun day.

After staying the night in Matamata we drove to Auckland and spent an enjoyable day wandering around the maze of harbours as we chose a restaurant to have lunch in. We decided to not see too much of the city just yet as we would have plenty of time to explore it in full when we return and sell the van. So we drove north to Whangaparoa and stayed at a great campsite on Red Beach where we met a few English people and swapped stories as well as swapping movies, we managed to get our hands on Lord of the Rings much to Lauren's delight, and that night we watched it and pointed out all the places we had been to. How sad we are.

The next few days were set to be sunny and warm so we chose to have a few beach days, we found a great park called Tawharanui which was a 600 hectare park surrounded by a predator proof fence, allowing rare native birds to thrive. We were surrounded by the cartoon-like Pukeko's and were informed by the ranger that there are Kiwis in the park, despite searching at night we didn't see any unfortunately. The beach here was great and as the wind was blowing from the south the water was flat and calm. We squeezed into our wetsuits several times over the 3 days we stayed there, and at one point saw 3 eagle rays through our goggles. Initially we were a little unnerved as we thought they were stingrays but after being reassured by someone we were actively searching them out.

On the recommendation of one of the English couples we met earlier in the week we went snorkeling in the Goat Island Marine Reserve. The water here was even clearer than the beach we just left and the coastline was a mixture of sand, rock and kelp. A haven for all sorts of marine life. We swam with huge Snapper, Red Moki and even more Eagle Rays, as well as loads of other small fish... it was fascinating. To get a wider view of the Marine Reserve we jumped on the glass bottom boat that left from the beach and got a guided tour around the reserve which covered 5km of coastline and stretched for a kilometer out to sea.

This evening we drove to Whangerei (all the towns sound the same) and are staying at a nice holiday park near Whangerei Falls, reputedly the most photographed waterfall in the country. We'll let you know if it lives up to it's reputation.