After skydiving in Taupo we headed to Rotorua – New Zealand’s stinky town! Rotorua is part of NZ’s geothermal area, so stinks of sulphur everywhere! To see some of the sites the geothermal activity produces we visited a village where we watched a geyser erupt around 30 meters in the air and saw sulphur caves, green lakes, a champagne pool (it bubbles all the time) and the Devils Bowl; a florescent yellow pool, the exact colour of highlighter.
Also in Rotorua, we watched Ireland vs. Russia in the Rugby World Cup. The day of the match felt like we were visiting Ireland – Rotorua was taken over by green and orange, and everywhere we went we heard an Irish accent! Consequently, the match had an amazing atmosphere, with around 80-85% of the spectators supporting Ireland. Ireland won the match 62-12 – making us feel a bit sorry for the few Russian fans.
After Rotorua we visited Matamata, home of Hobbiton; the village where the Hobbits live in Lord of the Rings (for everyone like Carrie who doesn’t know what this means!). Our tour of Hobbiton was excellent (in Ryan’s opinion) as the set was dressed to start filming for the movie The Hobbit (which they will apparently film throughout October and November). We found out that instead of using computer graphics in the films to make the Hobbits look tiny, they just alter the sizes of the set. Consequently, we saw tiny ‘Hobbit Holes’ and big holes. Apparently the tiny holes are used to make real size humans look massive! O so clever! As Hobbiton is located on a farm we also got a chance to bottle feed some lambs at the end of our tour, which were really sweet!
Our final stop in NZ was Auckland, where we spent a day shopping, as well as looking around Eden Park (the main rugby world cup stadium!) and climbing Mt Eden (which gives an amazing view over the city). We also took a ride up the ‘Skytower’, the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, which gives brilliant 360 degree views over the city. Before leaving Auckland we journeyed to a black sand beach just outside of the city called Bethels Beach, which was surrounded by beautiful black cliffs and sand dunes.
We were both really sad to leave New Zealand and surprisingly, our campervan!
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