New Zealand 2017 Day 3: Matamata (Hobbiton), Rotorua

I was so excited for this day! Hobbiton!  Unfortunately, my health was not agreeing with me. I woke up not feeling well. The entire right side of my jaw and neck were in pain and my neck was swollen from my sore throat.  This freaked me out for a while so I ended up running a bit late. I needed to be at Hobbiton by 8:15am. I was only five minutes late...but I at least got my GoPro set up on my windshield!

It was an easy 30 minute drive to Hobbiton.  A beautiful sunny day, and the drive was beautiful as well.  Not many cars on the country roads.  There was neverending grass, fields, and happy sheep.  The entire landscape looked like the Shire.

Happy sheep at the beautiful Anderson farm on the way to Hobbiton

Once there, I boarded the tour bus with around 25 other folks. 85% of them were from one large tourist group.  As we were driving through the farm before the actual set, I could not help but just look in awe at everything. The farm is huge and beautiful.

Hobbiton is so beautiful.  Green lush, flowers, and rolling hills.

Once at the set, the tour guide Emily led us to important areas and allowed us to stop and take pictures.  This is when I became really irritated with the other tourists.  Extremely loud, rude, and didn't pay any attention to Emily.  Just talked loudly and got pictures loudly. It was really off-putting.

We stopped at many hobbit holes. All so cool. Crazy that the crew spent a couple years building the set for just a few days of filming there.  I loved the rolling hills and how the hobbit holes seemed to perfectly fit in place there.

Hobbit holes!  So awesome.

It was interesting to learn that the one large tree above one of the hobbit holes was actually artificial.  The crew members had to hand paint each leaf individually, and when Peter Jackson was not satisfied with the color of the tree, they did it all over again.

Fisherman-Hobbit's area

At this point the other tourists were completely disrespecting the set, with the kids climbing up and down the grassy hills and near the hobbit holes when they weren't supposed to.  Ripping at the grass as they rolled down the hill.  I was so disgusted by their behavior.  Another tour guide came and forced them all to delete their latest photos.

After a ginger beer at the Green Dragon, we boarded the shuttle again to head back to our cars. I can't believe I got to experience this! It was surreal to see the movie scenes play on the shuttle and know that I was just standing in that spot. Really special and magical.

Beautiful landscape at Hobbiton

Entrance of the Living Thermal Village

After Hobbiton, I had a long drive to Rotorua.  I started feeling weird...very tired. Maybe it was mild heat exhaustion.  But, I still stopped by an attraction before making it to my Airbnb.

I got to the Whakarewarewa Living Thermal Village.  It's a little different from one of the other cultural shows because Maori people actually live there. 

I joined a guided tour. One of the first stops was seeing some kids swim in the river below, waiting for someone to throw them a coin. They would then go fish for it with their mouth, and apparently they earn a lot of money doing this.  I couldn't help but feel bad for them though.  It must've been two hours of them doing this..how tiring.

Corn is cooked in the boiling hot pool

We walked around many different stations, seeing how the Maori cook their Hangi meals underground, the different hot pools, and also saw a cultural performance.  They did a great job.  I liked that the entire experience felt less touristy and more authentic.

It was so hot now, maybe mid-80s and being next to the thermal pools.  I ate in their cafe and sat for a while.  Finally mustered up the energy to go to the Airbnb, which was 10 minutes away.  I had to take a nap and rest for a couple hours..felt much better afterwards.  Woke up in the evening and realized I needed something for dinner, so I drove 10 minutes to the nearby Countdown grocery store.

One of the many hot pools at the village

I ate my hodgepodge of food at the Rotorua lakefront. Just wanted to relax there and not do anything strenuous.  There were a lot of birds, especially black swans.

I had an early night, and it worked out to be able to just sleep and not go rafting the next day (I had called to confirm the trip but no one else was booked, so it had to be cancelled.)  Yes, it would have been fun, but it probably would have wiped me out for a long time and made me more sick.

A great day at Hobbiton and preview of Rotorua!