On our way back to Auckland from stinky Rotorua we went to Matamata, which is also known as Hobbiton now as it was the site for the Shire in the Lord of the Rings.

We booked onto a tour at 11am as the set where they filmed the Shire scenes for the film is set on a private sheep farm in the middle of nowhere. We joined our group out and after 20mins we were at the farm and set about making our way to the set. Wow this place is set in some gorgeous countryside and you can't see any houses, building, telephone poles or hear any traffic at all.

The tour was brilliant, one of the highlights of the holiday. The Shire set where the Hobbits lived is the only remaining actual set from the whole movie so you can still see all the home fronts such as Bag End which were used in the film. We spent 2 hours on the tour and the guide was brilliant as he explained how the filmed the movie and about all the lengths the director Peter Jackson went to in creating the set as perfectly as he could. Really good stuff!

Once our tour of the set was finished we were taken to the main farm to see a sheep shearing demo and also got the chance to feed some lambs (we didn't get the bottle though) which was good to see. After this we carried on towards Auckland.

We've only had a couple of days in Auckland so we took of the days and drove over to Devonport which is a costal suburb of Auckland and is a really quaint village area. Nice and relaxing with good views across the harbour to Auckland.

Today which is our last day, we went back to Auckland Museum to watch a Maori Cultural Performance. This was amazing to see!!! The Maori people in the performance demonstrated some of there traditional dances, fighting moves, social games etc all from there past. They then finished with the highlight, the war dance known as the Haka. If you've ever watched the Rugby and seen the All Blacks do there thing at the start of the match, then thats the Haka. Awesome thing to see and so glad we got to see this while in New Zealand.

Thats it then. Our bags are packed and we are ready to leave New Zealand for Brisbane, Australia tomorrow morning.

New Zealand is an amazing country and we wish we had longer here. Everyone told us we would like it and they were not wrong and we would definitely consider NZ to live if our plans don't work out in Oz.

Anyway, before we go here are our highlights from New Zealand for each of us in order :)

Emma

1. Taupo in general
2. Rangitoto Island Volcano Hike
3. Taupo Rapids Jet
4. Maori Performance
5. Hobbiton Tour
6. Body Fuel Taupo - Best GF cakes
7. Best GF pizza at Hell Rotorua
8. Sky Tower

Andy

1. Rangitoto Volcano Hike
2. Hobbiton Tour
3. Taupo Rapids Jet
4. Seeing the Maori Haka
5. Rotorua Luge
6. Taupo in General
7. Everything else - Except Rotorua