I've put my New Zealand trip blog posts long enough! Day 4 was spent in Rotorua and it was amazingly fun! Despite the gloomy weather we had that day, New Zealand still managed to stay beautiful.
We took a half day tour to the filming set of Hobbiton. For those unfamiliar with the Lord of the Rings series or the Hobbit this is the village in which the main characters hailed from. It was a 2 hour bus ride from Rotorua to Matamata which is where the set is located.
This place was so wonderfully scenic. I've never seen rolling green hills until Matamata and the air was fresh and crisp. Straight from the scenes of a movie (literally).
Bilbo and Frodo's home at the top of the hill. Our tour guide was clearly a fan of the series and he even helped out during the filming. The tree on top of their home is actually artificial and because of all the support needed underneath the tree, the home itself doesn't have an interior. I believe they film the indoor scenes elsewhere.
Inside the Green Dragon, the pub to the locals of Hobbiton. The pub also didn't originally have an interior but they have since fixed that up and we were allowed in to grab a free mug of beer or ginger beer. The atmosphere was nice and cosy with a real fire place. It was nice to get out of the chilly, gloomy weather outside.They also have a pub cat. Cats have never liked me and this cat proceeded to swipe at me immediately after this photo was taken. He was really good with the children though.
After the tour we had a buffet lunch at a terrible buffet chain that Danny used to love as a kid. It was super cheap though. Food is food after all.
We then decided to go luging. We were really excited for this for our own personal reasons. I have never been luging and the concept of it sounded exciting and Danny used to go as a kid as well. Unfortunately I didn't take any decent photos of the luge ride for obvious reasons. The luge definitely met my expectations. There were some pretty risky turns but the adrenalin rush you get from it is definitely worth it. Admittedly! I was a little slow going through the turns as I'm a little grandma-ish when it comes to speed. I am ashamed to say that a bunch of high school kids over took me going down the track.
We also went zorbing! Do not underestimate how scary Zorbing can be. I didn't take any photos of this either (I'm a terrible tourists) but with every bounce I felt my stomach drop. It was like constantly going up and down on one of those tower drop rides at theme parks. Still extremely fun and definitely a new experience.
I apologise for the overexposed photos but the weather was not on my side and I'm still new at this photography game. I tried my best to make the photos look decent!
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