Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson vs. Frodo the Hobbit: On the Craters of The Moon

So according to Declan's Kiwi friend from Perth, the Cook Strait, the crossing between the north and south islands, is the roughest in the world. Well as Declan told Paul in Perth, there is no worse journey than the Holyhead to Dublin crossing with Big Joe at the wheel!!

Our crossing was perfect, as near to sublime sailing as a gigantic car ferry can be. The only small problem was the other Yampi Kiwis that milled about the vessel talking absolute rubbish. The thick kiwi accent is terrible on the ears, worse than the Black Country by a mile. "Its tiiiiiin o'clock" one responded when asked the time. The 4 hour crossing landed us straight into the heart of Wellington city centre, literally! We disembarked the ship and as New Zealand is the most poorly signposted country in the world, we ended up in the wrong lane. The wrong lane luckily took us onto the highway and about 10 km out of the city, thanks!! When we were finally presented with an exit from our highway hell, we about turned and headed back into the city so we could actually see some of it.

Back in the city, we encountered even more problems as our 3 meter high van was too tall for every car park we came across. Eventually, after lapping the city twice we squeezed into a car park space so tight we had to exit the van from the back doors. The ticket machine then only accepted coins, which we didn't have, and after finally getting a ticket, it was limited to a 2 hour maximum. By the time Melanie had found the camera, hidden our valuables and changed outfits, we had a little over an hour and a half left. Our destination was Te Papa Tongarewa, which is a big Maori sentence for, the museum.

The museum was very Maori centric and included quite alot of biased articles and accounts of how 'the Europeans' ruined everything in New Zealand. The pesky Europeans came to New Zealand, and did nothing but evil. They purchased large areas of Maori land for fair prices, opened up the world to Maori products, domesticated livestock for mass farming, built roads and rail networks and many other terrible, terrible things. For unknown reasons none of the comments above were mentioned in the museum, what was mentioned was all the 'woe is me' stories and a large section of the museum was dedicated to an animal that the Europeans apparently hunted to extinction. Apparently, is the crucial word in that sentence as said bird, a Moa(imagine Big Bird from Sesame Street and give it a kiwi accent), was last seen over a thousand years ago, some 500 years before the Euros even got there!!!! Now you don't need Carol Vorderman to work that out.

The parts of the museum that weren't appeasing a disgruntled segment of the Kiwi nation were really good. There was a whole section devoted to the crazy wildlife that is spotted around New Zealand, including a 25ft long giant squid preserved in a giant squid sized pickle jar. From this exhibit came a massive room about the geological history of New Zealand which included an Earthquake simulator and 2 life sized velociraptors. Any room, anywhere with life sized velociraptors is worth a look around. Another great section was the ancient Maori section which showed how the Maori lived when they first came to New Zealand. It explained how they built their houses and explained their traditions. The area included scale models of their river houses and even one of their war boats. The war boats were used for fishing and crossing the many rivers and lakes in NZ (Note: it wasn't mentioned that they ate all the massive birds when they first got here)

From the museum we headed out of the city and back up the highway. Initial thoughts of the north island are that it is alot more populated than the south. This however hasn't affected anyone's driving skills and they are all still incapable of executing simple turns and manoeuvres! Our drive North wasn't long and we quickly came across the town which we had planned to stay in for the night. Porirua, is located about 30km from Wellington and isn't a town where you would want to raise your kids. We found the highly recommended campsite and pranced into reception to pay the host. The 'Host' of this particular campsite just so happened to be the meanest looking mofo ever spawned. The Tank sized, tattoo sporting Maori, was built like everyone's favourite action hero, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson. However, whereby you would go for a drink with The Rock and laugh and joke with him about how much he sweats in Fast and Furious, you would do no such thing with man parked behind the counter. Just in case you have painted a picture of a friendly looking human, this guy had a 10 inch scar running down his neck and he was wearing a black string vest!! A BLACK STRING VEST!!!! The leaflet we were handed which had about 15 spelling mistakes on insisted the site was alcohol free, even though he himself was swigging a beer. This guy was so beefed up it pained him to circle our site on a map, if he injected any more steroids; they would be scrapping him off the wall after he popped!! Any way it was cheap and we were starting to realise why. We found our site, parked up and boiled the kettle. "We might not see the morning, you do know that don't you?" said Mel "Dont worry, I'll sell you to The Rock before anything bad happens.................Seriously though, we might die here" Declan chuckled.

It was halfway through our relaxing mid afternoon brew that we decided things weren't right and maybe it was time to get the hell out of dodge. An 'Ali G/Eminem' wannabe turned up with his Amy Winehouse girlfriend, parked up right next to us in a Vauxhall Astra, tunes blaring, pulled out a deck chair and started rolling up. This wasn't the straw that broke the camels back though, oh no, that came when we went and asked about the free wifi mentioned on the leaflet. If you don't believe anything in these blogs then believe this next part, it's truly unbelievable.

"Hi, I was just wondering about the free wifi as my iPad won't pick it up".....A fair request from a paying customer I would say.

"Urgh" came 'The Rock' as he craned his neck up from his game of angry birds. "Yeah the free wifi" (get ready for this)

"Yeah the free wifi is down at McDonalds..........You might have to buy a cone though as they get annoyed with people sitting there"

Not wanting to challenge a man who could kill with ease (again probably) we nodded and returned to the van.

Keys went in the ignition, the engine turned over, the van was put into gear, the handbrake released and some 50km later we found ourselves at the nicest little caravan site in the North Island.

The following morning, after sleeping safe in our bed we put the whole 'adventure' in Wellington behind us. Today we were driving up the guts of the North Island all the way to NZ largest lake, Lake Taupo. After stopping at the bottom of the lake for lunch we just about made it to the top for dinner, seriously it's that big! Well it's not, but it did take about 2 hours to get to Taupo centre. Taupo is the southern hemispheres Mecca for unwinding. The whole Taupo area is surrounded by thermal vents. Thermal vents and water = Hot Springs!! Having checked ourselves in to a resort we frittered away the afternoon with abit of relaxation. There is nothing better than relaxing in a mineral fuelled hot spring for so long that you have trouble walking to the cold showers. We intelligently bought a day pass to the springs which stay open till late. This meant we could go and eat dinner, catch a few zzzzz's in the van and then go back and do it all again before bedtime!!

The following morning, having woken up with the cleanest skin in the world we headed off out of town fully revitalised. Our day involved quite a hearty bit of driving to squeeze in as many adventures as we could in the centre of the country. Our first stop was the Huka Falls. The humungous Taupo Lake all runs out the same river and the Huka falls is where it all gets congested. The lake runs into a 150m long solid rock channel about the width of a road, then off a small waterfall into the river. The stretch of rock/river was ferocious; it was nature at its roughest. If you fell in, you'd be dead, if the speed the water was moving at didn't drown you, then all the jutted out rocks would take you out. Millions of litres flowing of water flowing through the rocks made for a great sound, a vicious roaring that didn't stop. Head shot photo done, we moved on.

As mentioned above, the Taupo area is full of geothermic vents. These vents, when not heating lovely pools of water for us to soak ourselves in, can be pretty spectacular on their own. So our next stop along the way was to the Craters of the Moon! These craters weren't really on the Moon, in case you thought they were, they were in hilly barren part of the countryside. The area had around 15 large vents; some of these had blown their top and created craters. The area around the craters was full of a special species of moss and shrub which can survive the boiling temperatures. Inside the craters the vents dispensed piping hot steam at a constant rate. In areas where this steam quickly condensed it formed bubbling mud pools. The whole area was good and as it was in a public park, it was free!!! Bonus!

After a bum numbing 2 hour drive we finally arrived at our top attraction of the day, The Shire!!!!! We actually had arrived at 'the shires rest' which is a small cafe/shop where you wait to go on the Hobbiton tour. For those completely in the dark about the words shire and Hobbiton, we were at one of the sets used in The Lord of the Rings, and recently The Hobbit films. To use the word 'set' is an understatement, Peter Jackson (the director) built an entire village. He literally did!!! Kiwi film director discovered the Alexander farm in September 1998 during an aerial search for film sites for The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. The fantastic views and rolling countryside closely resembled that of the 'Shire' in the popular classics by J.R.R Tolkien.

The large established pine tree, later re-named 'the party tree', was already ideally placed in front of the lake. The surrounding farmland was untouched by 20th century clutter such as roads, buildings or power lines making it the perfect setting in which to recreate the home of the Hobbits.

The making of the miniature village turned out to be a massive project. Site construction started in March 1999 when the New Zealand Army moved in with heavy earth-moving machinery to create the village contours, and continued for nine months. The original set built of temporary materials - such as 7mm ply and styrofoam - was largely deconstructed at the end of The Lord of the Rings filming, leaving the form of the village with the empty Hobbit holes, winding paths and the party tree.

Luckily for us the set was rebuilt in 2011 for The Hobbit Trilogy - this time in permanent materials, complete with Hobbit holes, gardens, bridge, a working mill and a lovely little pub called the Green Dragon. This is where Jackson went a little bit crazy. The detail he has included around the village will never even be seen in the films. The sets are a mass of crafted details from the handmade pots, wood piles and chopping blocks complete with axes, to ladders and clotheslines. All the bricks used in the chimneys and houses were made on site, and buckets of vinegar and yoghurt applied to help age the wood and encourage growth on the bricks. The vegetables and flowers are real, and much of the vegetation - 1.2km of hedges and mature Hobbit-scale trees - have been sourced all over the local countryside, including a 35-ton tree that was moved from a neighbouring farm with the aid of two bulldozers and diggers. He moved a tree!!!!!! Not only did he move a tree, he built one, the massive English Oak seen above Frodo's house is a basically a work of art. A steel frame surrounded by plaster, painted to look like a tree. He then had ALL 20,000 leaves sown into the model.

Any way Hobbiton has 44 hobbit holes of varying sizes. This is for many reasons, obviously the first being scale, from above it needed to look like a lot of little hobbit houses. The second reason is where the old Peter Jackson earned his Knighthood. Different holes were made to suit the different actors that would need to use them. Frodo's front door was made like 6 times, just so Peter could film it as different actors approached, now that is mental dedication. Aside from Frodos house, all the other hobbit holes are just prop doors built into a hill, they only go back about 5ft into the hillside, so you couldn't actually live in one if you wanted to.

The tour around the main Hobbit neighbourhood was 2 hours long and not a minute of it was boring, our tour guide told us lots of stories from filming and about the set and farm itself. As other members of the planet were also allowed to book onto the tour, we had found ourselves surrounded by the most annoying 2 families on Earth. They were annoying for numerous reasons the first being the 'dads'. Both of them were carrying around a young child in a stupid backpack contraption that they obviously had to keep adjusting as the hobbit holes were built into the ground and were meant to be small. So every time we came to one, they would have to go through some massive drama just to get the backpack safely on the floor so they could take 500 photos. The second reason they were annoying was that they were German. Enough said. The third and most important of all the reasons why these families were annoying was because of their other child. So they both have a 2 year old in the back pack then BOTH families have a 3 year old wandering about beside them clueless and bored. Do you see something wrong with this? Well Declan did!!

Why pay large sums of money to bring a child who doesn't even know where the hell they are, let alone that they are on a film set, to Hobbiton. The Lord of the Rings trilogy is 10 years old, The Hobbit only came out last year, these children wouldn't have a clue what either of those things were, and shouldn't be watching films like that if they did. Why are you all here pissing everyone off, with your stupid German shoes and you're annoying eyebrows (that's the parents, not the kids, they were cute). If the kids were older then that would be fine, but no, they cried and moaned all the way along. Note to everyone, 3 year olds don't care for classic works of fiction, or the movie worlds they spawn!!

Thankfully the whole thing then ended with a trip to The Green Dragon. A complimentary apple cider and a variety of beers - custom-brewed locally for The Green Dragon - were on the menu. There are several bar areas inside, a cosy snug, a garden bar under a shady willow tree, lawns and plenty of room to accommodate everyone. Expert tradesmen created an intricate 'olde worlde' in an on-site workshop, and crazy Peter had it filled with lots of little hobbit props and decorations. The end result was an authentic experience in a Middle Earth pub. As Mel was driving Declan got himself 2 free drinks and slugged them back from one of the prop beer mugs used in the film!

Back in the van we headed off east towards the Bay of Plenty where our next adventure awaited us in the morning.