Black Sand, Hobbits, Zorbing and almost Mount Dooooooom.

My flights were into Auckland in the North of New Zealand, the largest city in the country playing host to a whopping 1/4 of the entire poplulation.... luckily including my friend Lance (who I met whilst doing the Inca Trail) who had very kindly agreed to put me up!! My first evening in New Zealand I was invited to join Lance's family for dinner, which was very enjoable as not only are thay lovely people, but its always nice to meet the locals, even if they are almost identical to English people!

Sin any kind of plan before arrival my first full day was mainly occupied with sorting out what I actually wanted to see and do in NZ. I decided to split my two weeks equally between the North and South Islands to enable me to see as much as possible. Luckily Lance had already done a lot of planning for our North Island activities so there wasn't much to do but book some plane tickets! The one thing I had SET MY HEART on doing in the North was a visit to Hobbiton, which I set up for the Friday of that week. I also managed to have a good explore of Auckland city centre, which was much like any other large city. Did have some lovely parks though. I'm becoming quite a massive fan of parks!

The next day Lance had the morning off work so we were away visiting some of the gorgeous black sand beaches along the coast of the north island. It was a tiny bit cold to swim (the climate here is much close to that of England than Oz is) , but we had plently of fun mucking about taking photos on the beach. We also visited the mount(ain) overlooking Auckland so I could see the good views of the city. the summit was complatetly inundated with Korean tourists, which also led to some entertaining 'spot the odd one out' phots.

The next day was the day of HOBBITON! So, for those of you not in the know, the set of Lord of the Rings is split over the South and North Islands of New Zealand. Hobbiton (the home of the Hobbits) is in a place called Matamata about a 2 hour drive South of Auck. For this purpose Lance had kindly lent me his car. Originally they had planned to demolish the sets at the end of the filming of the trilogy back in 2002, however someone figured tours would be a better plan, and then the location got picked up again for the filming of the Hobbit- which is currently underway. To cut a long story slighly less long, Hobbiton is actually an active film location at the moment, with fruit growing on the trees, flowers blooming and all the 40 Hobbit holes fully constructed as filming was due to start 2 weeks ago, but got pushed back (yay!!! So glad!). Its basically AMAZING to be there and I would LOVE to write all about what I saw and post all BILLION of the photos I took but I had to sign a privacy agreement stating I wouldn't show anyone the photos or discuss what I was told or saw till after the release of the final film in 4 years time. Check back then chaps for the hot scoop!

In yet another jammy turn of luck one of Lances friends had scooped free VIP tickets to Auckland races for the next day, and I was invited (by proxy, but who cares!)! we were to be seated in the Mercedes Fashion Tent (room, as it turned out to be raining), so got a catwalk show to go with our gambling. Despite having to borrow my whole outfit off Lances sisters we had an absolutely wonderful day, with free champagne, HEAPS of gorgeous food (yes, I did have two puddings... well two plates of pudding, multiple pudding on each plate. Backpacker heaven) and I even won $15 having a lady like flutter on a race or two! Higlight of the day would have to be listening to the stadium of Kiwis sing thier national anthem. Well that and being branded the 'soul stealer' by Lance's friends for having red hair (apparently Ginger people steal souls, who knew). We then decided to follow up a spectacular day with a night out in Auckland, where I got to wow everyone with my ability to drink very very fast.

In a sensible planning move we decided to get up super early the next day to go to Roturua, a town south of Auck; in order to enjoy the world famous sport of Zorbing, have my first go at Luging, and to see Mount Dooom (and possibly coincidentally some Kiwi scenery). Luckily we were largely sin hangover due to the sobering powers of a 3am kebab and lots of water!

NZ is the home of adventurous and extreme sports, and as the birthplace of Zorbing I was able to count spinning down a hill in an inlatable ball a 'cultural experience' (if you dont know, Zorbing is willingly getting in a large inflatable ball filled with water and having someone shove you down a hill. Sounds idiotic. Massively fun). Next we were off to try Luging (also invented in NZ) which is basically Go Karting, but on a downhill track instead of a circle, allowing gravity to power the cart, and meaning you go very fast, on two wheels and occassionally airborn. Also massively fun.

Next we (read I) had decided the day was incomplete without a visit to Mount Ngauruhoe, better known outside NZ as Mount Doom. Unfortunately after driving the 3 hours to get there it was too cloudy to see properly (so annoying it was funny), you could almost say the venture was doomed. Ha ha. But luckily the spectacular sunset over Lake Taupo was ample compensation. And I actually got to see a lot of the North Island I otherwise would have missed out on! the downside was that we arrived back at half past midnight, and had to be up again at 5am for my flights to the South Island.

But it was all good, I got there in time and was ready to enjoy a week dahn souf!