Hobbiton- The Shire

The Best part of the spring break trip up north was visiting the Shire. It was so cool to walk around the set of something I had seen so many times in the movies. I could recognize many things and learned quite a bit about the filming during the tour. I should probably get a job there seeing as how I knew a Lord of the Rings fact that the tour guide didn't even know!! I got tons of pictures and enjoyed every minute of. The only bad thing was the large size of the tour group but that was easily forgotten. At the end of the tour we were all given a free hobbit beer of our choice at the Green Dragon (the pub in the shire) the beer was actually quite good. I wonder if I can find it anywhere else in the world? Over that was definitely the highlight of break and something that I did not want to leave New Zealand without doing. I'm glad I was able to. Any lord of the rings fan would be! 

Rotorua

Rotorua was a nice little city though the sulphur smell was a little unbearable at times. It is known as the Maori Capitol of NZ but all the visits to Maori villages were way out of my price range, though I would've loved to go to one. In Rotorua we walked along the giant lake, went mountain biking through a redwood Forrest (first time seeing them, haven't seen the California ones), and got quite a bit of souvineer shopping done. There were tons of shops to go to around the city and we ended up constantly just going in circles through the town. The hostel was decent, I liked it better than the one in Wellington. The reason for the sulphur smell is because of thermal activities below ground from a nearby volcano. We went to the thermal park one day and relaxed with our feet in one of the warm pools it was nice. 

Wellington

Well the 2 weeks spring break began very well and we (my roommate and another friend) set out to Wellington. We rode the ferry across the cook straight and had quite a nice ride. We even saw dolphins! Once we arrived in Wellington we found our hostel after about an hour walk from the ferry terminal and relaxed for a bit. We spent 2 days in Wellington where we walked through most of the downtown area, visited some shops, museums, and went to parliament. Wellington is a very big night life city but neither of my companions wanted to join me in going out so we just hung out in the hostel. I guess it saved some money. I did go to a good micro brewery called Black Dog brewing and enjoyed quite a few good beers. After leaving Wellington we headed further north to Rotorua. 

Middle Earth: Rohan

This past weekend we had a group of 9 travel to Middle Earth from The Lord of the Rings. We visited the filming spot of the capitol of Rohan-Edoras. It was pretty cool to see that in the movie and then in real life. We went and saw that on Saturday, in the rain :/ we finally had a bad weather weekend but we didnt let that hinder us. Friday we left around 330 and got to the campsite area around 530, 6ish. After setting up camp next to a huge lake we all just hung out, explored some, and enjoyed the views. Once it got dark we had some fun with lights and a slow mo camera. This may have been one of the best groups we got together for a trip, we all had a good time. We brought our friend Sharon (an Indian guy) camping for the first time- he loved it! One of the guys tried to fish before it got dark and didnt catch anything. He went out again at night with my suggestion of using a piece of wood as a bobber (he didnt have any) and ended up catching a fresh-water eel. It was pretty cool. My guess is it was about a yard long. That ended up being quite an adventure and led to many talks and jokes later on in the trip.

Later that night all 9 of us crammed into a 3 person tent and played some cards. It was quite cramped, but made it warm and cozy ha. We played for as long as we could handle being all cramped up then slowly everyone drifted off and eventually went to bed in their own tents. The next morning was when we went to Edoras, we didnt stay too long because of the weather though. It was an alright hike either way though. ON our way back to the camp site we stopped at a cafe and some people got some warm drinks while a few of us played pool. After that we returned to camp and split into 3 groups. The other 3 guys went fishing at another lake, 2 girls went to do a hike up a mountain and 3 girls and myself did a long walk around the lake. The walk took quite some time as it was 10.2 km or about 6.5 miles long. We were ot expecting that. My feet were quite sore, though I got some good pics and the weather stayed decent during this time. Once back to camp we relaxed until everyone returned. That night we all hung out again but not as long as everyone was just exhausted.

The next day we packed up and headed home. Overall it was a good weekend and I have a two week mid semester break coming up now. This is a busy school week for me though so its crunch time and time to study and do work. Seeya!!