Matamata, the Bay of Plenty, and another unfortunate stopover in Taupo, followed by Wellington

While we were staying over at Gay and Bill's Mike and I took a brief road trip out to Matamata and the Bay of Plenty. In Matamata we went on a Hobbiton tour...which was a bit overpriced for what it was, but still kind of neat. Hobbiton, or the Shire from Lord of the Rings, was mainly filmed on this giant sheep farm in Matamata. They took down/destroyed most of the set for copyright purposes, but left the remains of the hobbit hole structures. We got to walk in Bilbo Baggin's hobbit hole hehe. Even though it didn't have any of the original decoration it was still kind of cool to see the little homes built into the hillside. They threw in a sheep show thing at the end for some reason, and I got to feed a lamb. It was very hungry. Reminded me of Mike and I.


We then proceeded to the Bay of Plenty/ east coast. We went to lots of gorgeous beaches there. The ones in Mt Manganui and Ohope were our favourite, and I especially loved them because there were toooonnnnns of amazing shells to collect there. Which I may not be allowed to take through airports, but I will try to find a way around that. So far successful.

Ohope beach

A couple days later Dan and his wife Jan came to pick us up on their way to Wellington, where they live. However, the car's alternator died and we were left stranded in Taupo for yet another night while we wated for repairs. We had good company, so it was fun anyway :). Mike and I got to ride in the car on top of the tow truck. We even signed up for sky diving yet again for kicks, but ended up leaving before our reservation for Wellington. No more waiting around for sky dive Taupo.

We stayed with Dan and Jan and their family in Wellington for 3 nights, and had a really fun time there. They are just like the Vancouver Stickneys...very laid back, great sense of humour and fun to be around! We had some fun dinners and movie nights with Dan, Jan, their two daughters Beck and Kim and two Thai kids staying with them, Pecky and Mark. We watched some good kiwi flicks including the Whale Rider, In My Father's Den and the hilarious Eagle vs Shark with Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords.

Wellington and the surrounding areas were gorgeous...there was TONS of waterfront area since there were so many inlets and out-croppings of land. It was very hilly and VERY windy. Houses were built on the edge of steep hills with no road access, so you had to either had to walk up steep staircases or have tram things up to your house! Jan and Pecky showed us around a bit. We went to WETA, which is the studio

where they do basically anything creative for movies such as Lord of the Rings and Avatar, i.e. make costumes, computer animation, props, miniatures, makeup, etc. That was cool. We also went to the museum there, Te Papa, which was very interesting. Sort of reminded me of the museum in Victoria. The best in NZ.

We had a lot of fun in Wellington and were sad to leave :( but it was time to move on to the South Island, so we had to say good bye to the Stickneys. We caught the ferry over to Picton on the South Island and then took a train along the coast to Christchurch.