Making up for lost time. (Rotorua)

So today has been flying by, and it's only half over, woohoo!

First thing I noticed about Rotorua - it STINKS! Rotten eggs, yuck. It's all the sulfur in the air... I'm getting used to ig, but I occasionally get a pretty strong whiff and am reminded of how nasty it is, haha! Anyway...

I went to Hobbiton - I loved it! It's actually on the "Alexander Farm", and the family was really accommodating of all the crews being on their land. It definitely is strange to be on a set, though, since the films are beautiful... it's kind of bare and a little sad - kind of like all the hobbits left town or something. New Line also still owns all the actual facades of the hobbit holes, so legally the tours cannot cover anything but the shells of them. The shells are living somewhere with New Line right now, oh well! It was still fun though. Since it's kinda depressing, I won't post any Shire pics that show the hobbit holes themselves.

This one looks over where the party was held, though - gorgeous landscapes!

The three girls I was with were from LA, and they were nice, but um... this is going to sound incredibly stereotypical, but they were completely ditzy, and pretty whiny. I was amused by them, though. My favorite nugget of the day: "yeah, our bus is full of Americans - LA and New York! The two biggest, most diversased cities in the country!" I want to think she was kidding, but I think she believes that diversased is a word... She also complained about the tour guide talking about the Scouring of the Shire, and how it was all filmed but wasn't in the movies, blablabla - she hadn't read the books, and when asked if she was planning on it she said no. When the tour guide said that many of the hobbit holes were burned during the filming, she said she didn't want to "know the ending!" - yet she wasn't planning on reading the books? What? Again, I giggled a little.

One thing I found even more interesting - there is 100 hours worth of footage that is left for all three movies that are fully edited and ready to go - they just never made it to the final films. SO - the tour guide said that Peter Jackson might RE-release the films, all with completely new footage. Not one frame of film will be duplicated - I piddled a little. The LA girls didn't comment - I don't think they got it.

I did stand in Bag End, which made for a pretty cool photo:

After Hobbiton, I was dropped off at Base again, and then picked up 5 minutes later by Kaitiaki Adventures and was whisked off to the Kaituna River. I think this photo says it all - you can't miss me:


21 feet is a long way to go! While my face might say something different - I loved it. Before we set off, we said a Maori prayer to the River to ask for the gods blessing. The guides were really awesome - very hippi-like - and explained that coming to New Zealand is coming to a place where "peace prevails," no matter what's going on in the rest of the world... I like that.

Thanks Jimbo and Scugs for a great day out on the river. Gotta finish my laundry, and then off to a Maori Village for dinner and a show, and then heading to the Polynesian Spas to soak in the natural sulfur pools to end the day...