Day 5-Thursday, March 13

We are leaving Auckland this morning!  It will be exciting to see some of the countryside as we travel by motor coach to Rotorua, stopping along the way to visit the Alexander Sheep Farm, Hobbiton, Middle Earth, movie set from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.

It is a beautiful sunny day and Norma, Donna, Jeanne, and I walk across the street to Denny's for breakfast this morning before boarding the motor coach.  It is a bit of a shock to see the prices on the Denny's breakfast menu!

On the front door of the Denny's was this surveillance photo of some scoundrels that left without paying for their food!

 As we made our way thru Auckland's city streets we saw this jigsaw puzzle car...

 and this home interior company's van with aptly featured graphics...

...along the way was this amazing sculpture...

 ...and this unusual building....

After going thru miles and miles of rolling hills covered in dry grass......

 ..we arrived at the Alexander Sheep Farm, and stopped to pick up Jack, our guide who would give us the narrated tour of Hobbiton, the Lord of the Rings movie set.

Now even though I have not read any of the books, nor have I seen any of the movies associated with this place, I can certainly admire and appreciate the awesome beauty of this lush valley and all the hard work that went into building this movie set (it took two years) and the continuing work involved in keeping it looking this way!   

 I think Jack told us there are a total of 41 "hobbit holes"!

 ...among fruit trees and vegetable plots...

...with a profusion of beautiful flowers of many varieties.

Jack gave us a detailed hour-long tour among all of the little hobbit houses.
We then proceeded over the famous stone footbridge, to the Green Dragon Inn where we were offered something cool to drink; next we walked up to the elaborate tent where our delicious lunch was to be served.

 Each support pole inside the tent was decorated with bunches of flowers...

Donna and Norma are happy to be here in this beautiful setting.

Ray and Althea are a couple from Indiana who we have really enjoyed getting to know while on this tour.  Jeanne met them last October when she and her husband Sam were on a Holiday Vacations tour in Germany.

Following our wonderful lunch, we made our way back to the Alexander Sheep Farm for a sheep shearing demonstration and a sheep dog demonstration.

Of course this all ended with a visit in the Gift Shop for a look at souvenirs depicting all things "sheep".

We boarded our motor coach for the remaining drive to Rotorua, seated on the southern shore of the lake of the same name.  Rotorua is the North Island's most popular destination and a major center of Maori culture and architecture. 

Along the way our driver/guide gave us interesting information about New Zealand:
--1st (ever in the world) shipment of frozen meat, in 1868, from the South Island to England
--Dutchmen were in New Zealand 120 years before Captain Cook's 1600's visit
--with the rich volcanic soil, most farmers get 3 crop rotations per year
--China is a huge market for New Zealand's milk powder
In New Zealand there are:
---10-15 million head of cattle
---30+ million sheep
---70+ million possum!  Possums are the worst nuisance of all pests!
--There are no native animals in New Zealand, only ones brought here over the years from other parts of the world.  There are no snakes, no bears, no moose, however for many years deer were brought here and farmed like cattle for their meat.  (Some still are!)

 We passed thru the small artsy town of Tirau, a dying town until an artist revived it with corrugated metal art, signs, buildings, and billboards.  Now it is a popular tourist stop!

 See the building that looks like a dog!  That is all made with corrugated tin!

When we arrived in Rotorua we were a little surprised by how much steam was rising out of the ground throughout the town.  Oh boy did it stink!  A hot sulfur smell!

We checked in at the Holiday Inn in Rotorua which is situated right next to a hot, steaming rushing stream!

 Looking out through our hotel room window we can watch the steam rising!

 We decide to go for a walk along the flowing stream, quite a beautiful fall setting.

 We follow along the nice pathway right behind our hotel....

We come to a footbridge across the flowing stream...

After following the stream for quite awhile, Norma can not resist the urge to drop down a steep embankment and put her feet in this stream!  She finds the water to be not hot but not cold either.  Then she and Jeanne both have a time crawling back up that steep embankment!

We follow along the nice pathway beside the stream/river for quite a ways before deciding to head back to our hotel via the roadway.

We are really wanting a nice big soda with lots of ice!  We walk a couple of blocks to a convenience store and are sadly disappointed!  Still no fountain drink machine!  Donna and I manage to wrangle a couple of cups with a couple of cubes of ice in each from the store's clerk.  But when we ask for a third cup for Norma the clerk says no, we'll have to buy a bag of ice if we want more ice!  Really?  You would think it is gold!  What is it with "no crushed ice drinks" in New Zealand??  Also there are no "ice buckets" in our hotel room either!  When we get back to the hotel we are told we can go to the hotel bar and ask for a small tub of ice.  Which we do.

Tomorrow we have a guided tour of the Rotorua Museum of Art & History, a tour of Wai-O-Tapu thermal wonderland, and a Maori cultural performance and feast tomorrow night!