So been in Rotorua a couple of days.

Been to see the LOTR film set for Hobbiton and today did Zorbing and Luging which were both awesome, or as you'd say round here sweet as! The reason the set doesn't look much like the film is not because its been left to the elements, but in fact because it was very nearly destroyed all together. You see New Line Films were told that they had to destroy all of the sets form the films because of copyright reasons with the Tolkiens. The sets for Hobbiton were the last to go, and they had nearly finished when bad weather meant they had to stop for about 4 months. During this time the Alexander family, who own the farm the set is on came up with the idea of the tours, so they contacted New Line, and persuaded them to leave what they hadn't finished tearing down. They then applied for permission to start the tours, and after two years they finally got it. So now there are 17 of the original 37 hobbit holes left. The pub and bridge were made of polystyrene, and so was the decoration on the hobbit holes, so that has all gone. The party tree was already there when they found the location, and this is the tree Bilbo makes his speech in front of. Some of the tree from on top of Bag End is still there, but they actually found the tree on another farm, cut it up, numbered the pieces, and then wired fake leaves individually onto it, once they had reassembled it. But the set for Hobbiton is the only bit of set still left, you can visit the locations for other parts, but no set is left. Oh and also the army spent 3 months building a road onto the farm that was capable of taking the 17 tonne trucks. Crazy!

Could write more, but then you'd think i was obsessed!

Off to Taupo tomorrow, has been good stay, nice hostel, nice people.

See ya