After Taupo we made the 2 hour drive north to Rotorua, a geothermal/volcanic region. The first thing we noticed about Rotorua was the smell. The sulphur stench hangs around in the air and seems to accumulate in all the buildings. we only spent one day in Rotorua and used our time to visit the Wai-O-Tapu geothermal Park. Our first stop in the park was an active geyser, The Lady Knox, which erupts everyday at 10.15am. We gathered around the geyser and watched as a member of staff emptied a bag of soap into the geyser, which allowed different water temperatures to mix and sent a large column of water shooting up into the air. We got a lot of spray and soap coming in our direction - quite spectacular though. The eruption carried on for quite a while and most of us moved on whilst the Lady Knox was still doing her thing. We spent the rest of the day walking around the volvanic park looking at bubbling mud pools, caves and craters filled with gases and a large lake layered with reds, greens and yellows. We finished off at a large pool, which was bright green and quite stunning.

Next we carried onto Matamata, home of the hobbiton set, which has just been redone for the filming of the hobbit. There was no way we were going to miss out on an opportunity to visit the Shire!!

We arrived at the Hobbiton farm the next morning and booked onto an afternoon tour. The farm itself was quite picturesque, complete with giftshop, cafe and little lambs springing around everywhere. At 20 to 2 we were loaded onto a bus with several others and driven through a big gate onto the 1020 acres of farmland that belonged to the Alexander family. 10 of the 1020 acres is used for the Hobbiton set. Peter Jackson, director of LOTR spotted the farm froma helicoptor in 1999 and decided that the rolling hills and lake were the perfect setting for Hobbiton. The set itself was a lot bigger than what we had expected and absolutely amazing. Bagend sits proudly at the top of the set overlooking the rest of Hobbiton. Below this tiny round doors have been built into the small hillsides complete with windows and chimneys. Many of the hobbit holes have little gardens, tiny ladders, pathways and fences around them - the attention to detail is staggering.

After our impressive trip around Hobbiton we continued on North to Tauranga, which is on the coast and has som amazing coastal scenery. We woke up to torrential rain on our first morning in Tauranga and so went to shelter in a McDonalds and used the free wifi to pass the time. By the afternoon the rain had cleared up and the sun had come out. We drove around to the harbour, parked up and decided to go for a walk. As we were walking along the beach we noticed a sign stating amounts of mussel and paua that could be taken from the beach per person per day. Seeing this we abandoned our walk and climbed down onto the rocky beach in search of our dinner. The mussels proved to be alot more difficult to gather than we had anticipated due to them being attached to rocks that were several meters into the sea and amongst large rolling waves. After failing to retrieve any mussels Ben anded up wading into the water and getting completely soaked but returned with enough mussels for a descent meal. Feeling triumphant we returned to our camper and went to find a place to park up for the night, stopping to buy extra ingridients on the way. We cleaned the mussels removing all the dirt, hair and molluscs. I then made up a leek, parsley and garlic cream sauce, cooked off some fetticini and simmered the mussels until they opened. I then served this up altogether and we enjoyed our best DIY meal we have done yet! :-)