New Zealand Tuesday!

Woke up early (6am!!) and joined Elsie in Sam exercises. We had to get it all in early so that we got to Hot Water Beach in time for low tide. We got there, it was busy (crowds not shown) and hired a little spade and dug a spa in a spot with a few hot jets. It was futile, as the waves washed it away, but it was fun. Apparently there is a similar thing somewhere else near Waitomo, less known about, further walking. Wouldn't neccessarily recommend this activity, it's never going to be as glamorous as the photos.

Then we drove south to Matamata which is where Hobbiton is. Here is the bit where Gandalf drives into the shire!

Here is me with a human sized hobbit house.

Here is me with a hobbit sized hobbit hole. It's the beekeeper house.

Here is us in a hole!

Here is Bag End!

Notice the little doors in the hills.

This is Samwise's house!

This is the Mill, from the Green Dragon.

This is our refreshment in the Green Dragon. We met an older Dutch couple.

Really there were limitless photo opportunities.

We drove on to Taumarunui. Our airbnb was very comfortable and Maureen and Les were friendly and answered a lot of questions, like what is with the fences? I thought they were cute hobbit fences, but then they were everywhere. They run up and down the hills. I think they are sheep proof. The little posts in between the main posts are called battens. There are 5 wires too. Batten fences became an addiction.

They took us to a deep cutting for a road down to a river, and it was night, and we walked through it in the dark and the walls were covered in glow worms! Little green dots of light. Very special.

A big section of wall had slipped down, and that happened everywhere. I saw heaps of erosion, and land slipping onto roads was described as fairly common.