Due to Ben's obsession with Lord of The Rings he was desperate to visit Matamata, a small village near to where Hobbiton was set in the LoTR's trilogy. We bought our expensive tour tickets and headed off in a van around a huge farm, filled with thousands of sheep.

Ben got rather excited when we approached the main area of the set and was pointing at random scenery telling Lisa about the films, Lisa nods, smiles and makes enthusiastic noises! The best part of the trip was that it still felt a little like Hobbiton even though all of the set was taken down and the doors to the hobbit holes were removed. You could still see how the set fitted together and the frames of the holes were still intact. Ben loved re-inacting some of the scenes from the movie, such as when Gandalf drags Samwise through the window for eavesdropping. What a geek!

After the tour we set off on our way to Coromandel! On the way we had a stop off at Wairere falls, which are 150m high, where we walked to a viewing point and went for a quick swim and soaked up a bit of sun!