We got up this morning and got the van ready to go. We said our goodbyes again to Sam and Steph who are now going to make their way to Auckland to fly early Thursday morning to Christchurch, picking up another camper and exploring the south island. It was strange saying goodbye again, we have promised to meet up in the UK at some point though. So we got in our van and set off for Mata Mata, the home of Hobbiton. It didn’t take too long to get there. We did have a small stop on the way for a new charger cable for me and a USB memory card reader for all of our photographs. Unfortunately they didn’t have the USB so we’ll find another shop later. We arrived just outside Mata Mata where we could see the entrance to Hobbiton, we decided to go straight into the town though. Sam and Steph had said it was worth a look because the i-site information place has been made to look like a hobbit hole. The whole town was into Hobbiton, shop fronts were made to look like hobbit holes too. We bought our tickets at the i-site, it was expensive but something we would regret not doing while we were here. We drove straight there and had a spare 45 minutes before we needed to go for the tour so we made some lunch. We headed for the tour, handed over our tickets and waited for the bus. We all got on the bus and set off for Hobbiton. The bus driver gave us some info about the set on the way, it was about a ten minute journey. We then all got out and started the tour, we walked around the 44 hobbit holes they have here and even went inside one or two. Stopping along the way to get some info from the guide, such as the sheep in the films are actually British sheep brought in and also a pig used in one of the films for four seconds was British too. We were really lucky as the weather was a little nippy but we had lots of sunshine. We walked around the whole thing and saw Bag end. We were told that the tree which was on top of Bag end for the Lord of the Rings films had to be made younger for the Hobbit films so it is completely artificial. It does not look at all artificial! We reached the Green Dragon pub and were each given a drink, James and I had a stout in our clay mugs by the fire. It would have been nice to have a little more time here but once our drinks had been drunk we were off. We walked back to where the bus had dropped us off so we could get back on. We got taken back to the car park, we’d had an awesome afternoon. We decided to go straight to Rotorua from here so we got on the road. Rotorua was about an hour away, we stopped and did manage to get the things we had wanted from the shop before searching out somewhere to stay for free for the night. Eventually we opted for a car park which was pretty much just an open space. We settled down, had tea and tried to get to bed early. These colds seem to be getting worse!