We woke early to drive to Wellington to attended the vineyard there. It proved a little hard to find as Garths phone battery had died but finding its car park took 3 attempts!! However, once there it felt like home from home. Garth knew a couple called Nick and Rose who used to attend SWLV a few years back and now have two gorg boys called Moses and Isaac. They offered us lunch which we gratefully accepted. Church was ace - a guy lead whilst playing drums, we g...

Garth got up to hear the little girl next to him ask 'where has that lady gone?' so cute! We left and got petrol and spent 1.5 he's in McDs to charge my phone, blog and email. We then drove south towards the coast. We looked for the 'Lothlorien' location but couldn't find it. However I did find the 'Rivendale' location in Kaitoke Regional Park. The location itself was a little disappointing as there was no set and a lot of overgrown plants. I don't think they u...

Garth got up to hear the little girl next to him ask 'where has that lady gone?' so cute! We left and got petrol and spent 1.5 he's in McDs to charge my phone, blog and email. We then drove south towards the coast. We looked for the 'Lothlorien' location but couldn't find it. However I did find the 'Rivendale' location in Kaitoke Regional Park. The location itself was a little disappointing as there was no set and a lot of overgrown plants. I don't think they u...

We woke early to find most of the camp had already left! We assumed they were doing the day hikes through the mountains. I think we had parked in the middle of a bee highway as there were hundreds of bees everywhere! We went to the park info centre where we decided to do a 2hr 6km walk to see a water fall. The weather was sunny and it was a lovely walk through plains, forests and then the waterfall which Garth went for a swim in! It was good to have some exercis...

We woke at sunrise and enjoyed the hot pools again before they were open to the public. We packed up and drove down to Taupo stopping to see the Huka Falls on the way which were a stunning light blue! We enjoyed spaghetti on toast by Lake Taupo which was beautiful! We then made our way down to Tongariro national park where we saw Mount Doom (aka Mt Ngauruhoe) for the first time. Unlike Mordor, it was surprisingly beautiful! There was lots of plants with purple...