Greg had decided that for his Birthday he wanted a weekend away to visit Hobbiton. This was something Claire, nor anyone else we knew, was particularly interested in. Having not read or seen the Hobbit or Lord of the Rings, the only way Greg could convince Claire to embark on this trip was to claim it was for his Birthday. Claire tried to be open minded. We based ourselves in Rotorua for the weekend, easy travelling distance to Hobbiton and plenty of other things to occupy Claire. The morning had come, and after a restless night sleep due to excitement, Greg was up bright and early to embark on his quest. From the visitor centre we headed off by bus across a farm to Hobbiton, nestled in behind a hill. We entered Hobbiton through Gandalf's cutting, it is at this point that Claire decided she wanted to move there. 49 Hobbit holes of varying sizes could be seen, some small to make people look big and some normal size to make people look, well, normal sized. There were gardens, vegetable patches, washing on the lines, little tracks through the grass, brightly coloured flowers and bunting, all 100% real and truly magical. We wandered around, spotting scenes from the movie, and Greg relentlessly bombarding Claire with Middle Earth facts, before heading up to Bag End (the home of the Baggins'). Greg's day was made when a Swedish guy on our tour sat on a tuft of grass outside Bag End and, brandishing an Irish whistle, played the Lord of the Rings theme tune. We finished the tour in the Green Dragon pub with a refreshing local brew.

We spent our afternoon on the luge in Rotorua. A plastic tray with wheels and handlebars that doubled as brakes on concrete tracks through woodland, sounded tranquil. We opted for 5 rides, the first of which was on the tamest of the tracks. Despite this, Claire was struck with fear as her luge headed off at speed through the trees, she soon gained control and pootled down the hill in a very calm manner. Needless to say Greg was a little frustrated at the pace and more so at the fact that everyone was over taking us. After successfully completing the first trip, Claire's confidence rapidly rose and after the 3rd ride, there was no catching her as she hurtled faster than anyone on the track over bumps and around sharp bends. Her incredible driving skills saw her to a clear victory over Greg in their final showdown.

That evening we unwound in the Polynesian spa beside Rotorua lake, where there are several outdoor hot thermal pools. This is a bit of a tourist hotspot and there were plenty of other guests enjoying the pools, mostly Asian people. Claire's pale skin attracted a lot of jealous looks from many of the girls as in the Far East the paler the skin, the better, whereas in the Western world it's just a bit weird.

Sunday we took a detour on the way home to take in some more white water rafting. These rapids weren't as full-on as our previous experience so the instructor kept things interesting by playing games as we went down such as perching one of us on the front of the raft and only letting us hold on with one hand, like a rodeo. Another was getting us to abandon the raft altogether and go down a set of rapids simply swimming. Overall it made it a fantastic trip. But the real reason we'd chosen this adventure was it included one big difference - a 7m waterfall, the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world. The build up to this was very intense with stories of Maori Chiefs being buried beneath the falls and saying a prayer for safe passage. The instructors told us with glee that there was a 50/50 chance that the raft would stay the right way round so he hoped we were a lucky group. The final touch: their signal that the route was clear for a raft to go over the falls was a whistle which sounded uncannily like the whistles used to order soldiers over the top in WW1. Needless to say we can remember very little of the waterfall, just simply paddling with an edge approaching us, being told to hang on and then falling surrounded by a torrent of water. Suddenly the entire raft was submerged and it tipped dramatically to the left whilst we were all frantically hanging on and holding our breath. The next thing we knew we'd popped up the other side the right way round and the elation took over. Not a bad Sunday morning.