Friday, July 22, 2016
Jeans. Fleece Sweatshirt.
Family. 55 degrees. Overcast.
Forests. Rolling Meadows. This was a memorable and fantastic day! I think I held my arms out in the middle of
the Redwood Forest today and yelled, “Oxygen!
I don’t feel like I’m dying. This
is awesome!” There is just something
about this place that is great. Walking
through a forest where I’m mostly not sweating, not afraid of scary animals
that might pop out at me, or being eaten alive by mosquitoes, watching my kids
run and play…it’s magical.
This morning we left our hotel in Matamata and drove 15
minutes to Hobbiton which is where the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings Trilogy
were filmed. It is beautiful. We met at the Shire’s Rest gift shop and café
where we met our small tour group of 15 people and our tour guide Mark. We loaded a large tour bus and drove 7
minutes into the actual movie set area.
Nothing is being filmed there anymore, and the land is owned by a New
Zealand farmer. There are over 30,000
sheep on the property and it was chosen for most of the on location
filming. The tour was 2 hours long with
our size group and just perfect. We
aren’t huge fans of the movies or books…I haven’t seen them, and Mason’s only
seen one or two, but the scenery was enough to take in. Theo and Woodrow both really liked the Hobbit
holes and wanted to see a Hobbit.
The tour guide explained some of the various filming
techniques and where different scenes were filmed. There were many small gardens throughout the
grounds which he also explained were all real and functioning gardens and many
of the produce was used in their restaurant.
We learned that while peach trees are huge for the Hobbits, the set
actually has apple trees planted because they are smaller and would fit in
better with the movie Hobbits. Almost
each hobbit hole had a different theme (cheese maker, bee keeper, painter,
etc…). We were allowed to go in one
hobbit hole, but they are just empty spaces.
Towards the end of the tour we were given drinks at the
Green Dragon café on the property and we sat by a warm fire for a few minutes
before enjoying a few more minutes outside and then getting back on our
bus. It was the perfect weather day for
this. Since we went in the morning it was overcast and not too hot, and it
didn’t rain! After our tour we hopped
back into the car and drove to Rotorua.
Mason drove while the kiddos and I took cat naps. This drive was about an hour.
It worked out well that our tour was slightly shorter than I
had anticipated and that we made good time to Rotorua because it meant we were
able to get most of our sightseeing in today instead of tomorrow as I planned,
since tomorrow will be a long driving day.
We had lunch at the Fat Dog café (most restaurants are called cafes and
places that offer take out are called takeaways). The lunch was quite tasty and offered big
portions. I sipped on some hot chocolate
which warmed me up after I had a slight chill from the mornings
adventures. I had a BLT that was so
fresh, Woodrow had a hotdog, Theo had French toast (which was so yummy), and
Mason tried an egg and sausage sandwich.
Great portions and fresh food, we definitely had some takeaways from
this meal.
From here we headed towards the Whatakarere Redwoods
Forest. We passed the entrance because
we thought it was further from the town, but we ended up seeing a really pretty
lake/mountains before deciding to turn around to go back to the forests. Whew!
If you’ve been to the California Redwood Forests, it was similar. We decided to take a walk on one of the
easier/family trails. As usual the
suggested 1 hour hike took an hour and fifty minutes. The path was pretty easy, not crowded, and so
serene. The boys loved collecting rocks,
leaves, and sticks. I tell you, give my
boys sticks and they have the BEST time.
They enjoyed running off the paths into the forest to be “camouflaged”,
playing hide and seek, and running along the trails. It made me so happy to see these guys so
happy and enjoying nature.
On our way from the forest to the hotel we grabbed some Thai
food from Amazing Thai Takeaways. It was
pretty tasty. The boys ate some
leftovers and macaroni and cheese that I had thrown in our bag before leaving
Guam. Tonight we are staying at the Best
Western Braeside Resort. Woah! The room we have does not disappoint. The lower level has a kitchen, bathroom,
living room, and dining room area with a Murphy bed (for Theo). There is a small patio with a small hot
tub! Upstairs has a king size bed and
single bed (for Woodrow), and bathroom.
It is SO NICE to have space at the end of the day and accommodations
that aren’t causing us to lose our minds each day. When I was booking places
for this trip it was hard because they didn’t like to allow me to book rooms
that didn’t have at least 3 beds with 4 people.
Seriously, the kiddos can share or sleep on the floor…so making some of
the arrangements I had to find some loopholes, but so far all of the accommodations
have been just what we need…tomorrow we search for washing machines.
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