Another late morning mainly due to the late night last night. Alex woke in the night again and we were also awoken by the rain. The rain was very heavy. I woke, had coffee and read my book until Elizabeth stirred. The weather outside was pretty rotten so we did not rush to get ready. Having said that some of us were more active than others which caused some tension.We decided to be very British in our approach to this and carry on regardless. The plan was t...

A lazy day today which meant we did not head out of the site until 11ish. We had heard the sulphur smell was unbearable but in all honesty it has been fine. As we left the sight we found Alex's lamby had lost an arm, fortunately she is not upset by this turn of events. We walked through the park looking at the thermal activity and ended up in eat streat, yes that it the way it is spelt ! The temperature was unbearable hot. We had lunch out and about which was...

The site was fine but basic, however we rarely use many of the facilities. We returned to Matamata for the 10:45 tour of Hobbiton, this time costing nothing. After a discussion with the staff we decided to go directly to Shire's Rest and pick the tour up from there. That had been our original plan, 20-20 hindsight is a wonderful thing.The farm is a way out of town and the café area had a nice lady from the UK serving in it, another case of the entire 3 genera...