Day 2 - Hobbiton
Reasearch and asking people for reccomendations saved me $100NZ just in one day. I found a cheaper way to get to Hibbiton other than the expensive private coaches just by asking someone if they had heard of anything. It was a long series of 3 hours each way on buses with only 1 bathroom break (!) but I managed. The destination: Matamata (it's really fun to say).The information center was decorated like a building out of Middle Earth. Another bus to pick us up and take us to the working farm that houses Hobbiton.
It was AWESOME! And I'm not just saying that becasue I'm a nerd and proud - it was super cool. All of the exterior Hobbiton scenes were filmed there and Peter Jackson took painsteaking measures to insure the consistency of the novels. There is a 2 second scene where Bilbo is running of on his adventure in the beginning of 'The Hobbit' and in the background there is a small girl sitting under a plumb tree eating fruit. Jackson didn't want an actual plumb tree becaue the plumbs were too big and would upset the consistency of the small hombbits, so he planted an apple tree, paid college students to take off all of the leaves and fruit and paste on fake plumb leaves and fruit onto the tree. It took 3 weeks to do all of this for a 2 second background scene.
Anyways - they had Sam & Rosie's hobbit hole, and Frodo's hobbit hole too! They also had a working pub called the Green Dragon where you got a free drink at the end of the tour. While on the tour, I met another American from Washington and he was on the same bus home, so we spent the rest of the evening on the bus talking about favorite movies, guilt pleasure movies, music, adn just about everything inbetween. When we got back to Auckland, we had dinner and went our seperate ways.
Day 3 - Auckland
Bungy jumping! Stopped at Starbucks on the way in (I needed a taste of home) and went to the bridge where I was going to jump off!! The bridge overlooks Auckland and there was a spectacular view of the city from the bridge. After walking up and watching the couple before me struggle to jump (the man was scared), it was my turn. I wobbled up to the ledge, took a deep breath, and jumped/fell when I was told to. It was so much fun! I had done the swing fall in Reno a few times before, so I was used to the feeling, but I still screamed. I bought the photos that they company took of me jumping, so there will be more photos when I get home.
Afterwards I went down the main street, Queen St. and stopped off at Vulcan Cafe on Vulcan Rd. (nerd alert!) for lunch. I walked around the city until I got to the Auckland Museum which is situated on top of a hill and has great views of the city. I was really curious about the Maori exhibit that they had becasue we didn't learn much about New Zealand and the Maori people in school because it wasn't pertinant at the time. They had a traditional Maori house in teh middle of the museum adn the aount of detail was amazing! I learned I little bit about the Maori people, but not as much as i was expecting from a mueseum.
There also was a min-exhibit on Sir Edmund Hillary and his historic assent up Everest over 60 years ago. There were a bunch of photos and a scale model of the mountian down to base camp! I found it fascinating because I will be there in a few short weeks!! The museum also had an interesting exhibit on volcanos, oceans and land and how they all shaped New Zealadn today. Overall - it was a good $10NZ spent.
Tomorrw I fly to Perth to meet up with Emma and Sam!
