December 20th, 2005 - The Land of the Long White Cloud

The sweaters and pants were out as we have officially entered the next phase of our trip, we arrived in Auckland on December 19th in the evening and treated ourselves to a nice meal on the harbor for our one evening in Auckland. Auckland is the biggest city in New Zealand and it was a nice transition into New Zealand for us (or the land of the long white cloud as it is called by the Maori people). We arrived in Auckland and it was raining, and have since been in the middle of a very inconsistent weather pattern that is not uncommon in New Zealand (being an island in the middle of the ocean). Driving out of Auckland we had sporatic down pours throughout most of the day before the sun would peer through the clouds. All in all, the weather hasn't been detering from the scenery that NZ has to offer. The North Island so far is full of cows and sheep. They say that the population of Sheep outnumbers inhabitants 10:1, at first I was sceptic seeing the size and population of Auckland, but Matamata, Rotorua, Waitomo and Taupo have all reinforced those numbers.

After picking up our rental car and heading down the mainland towards Rotorua, we took a detour through the town of Matamata to see where they filmed the 'Shire' from the Lord of the Rings movies. Although the rolling hills and rock outcropings are all beautiful and lush, we were determined to see the actual patch of grass where the hobbit hole was built and filmed. So being the budget travellers we pulled into the information kiosk, discovered that an organized tour was heading to the set in 5 minutes time and proceeded to follow it out of town towards the movie set to try and catch a glimpse before we continued on our journey. Unfortunately, the bus eventually turned onto private property and we weren't able to follow through the series of unmarked gates required to get deep into 'the shire'.

We arrived in Rotorua and after a slight hiccup finding a place to stay, we settled into our accomodations with 5 minutes to spare before our Tamaki tour, that we had organized earlier that day. The tour consisted of a visit to a traditional Maori village, a cultural performance followed by traditional Hungi feast. Hungi is food that has been cooked on hot stones buried underground. The whole experience was enlightening and entertaining, with some comic relief provided throughout the evening by our bus driver. I particularly enjoyed when he made us sing songs on the bus on the way home and when everyone was quiet, decided to sing 'She'll be coming around the Mountain when she comes...' on a roundabout on the outskirts of Rotorua for two complete turns of the intersection. We also played the hokie pokie with body parts from the Maori names.