My Precious--Road Trip to Rotorua & Hobbiton

Well, we got to experience our first real road trip in New Zealand this weekend, and...let me tell ya...it is a whole different ballgame than road tripping back home. There really aren't any highways here so it was a lot of back roads with no speed limit signs, no cell phone reception and no lines in the middle of the road to distinguish the lanes--good times!

All of that being said, we hopped into the car bright and early on Saturday morning to start out on our 3-hour adventure down to Rotorua. We had to stop at McDonald's for breakfast because the milk we had at home was starting to smell a little funky according to Drew. The whole way there is was pouring down rain and super windy. We made it to our hotel though and quickly noticed the smell of the hot sulfur springs that the town is famous for (smells like rotten eggs for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of smelling it!) With the rain deterring our outdoor plans, we decided to drive around a bit and do some souvenir shopping--always fun!

The rain let up a bit, so we decided to venture out for our first excursion...ZORBING!! The concept of the Zorb was actually invented in New Zealand, so we figured we had to try it! Basically, they fill a giant plastic ball with some warm water, you jump in, and they push you down a giant hill! This is a video of me doing it...and pictures of Drew below...

It was still raining and freezing cold outside, but the water temperature was nice and we just hauled tail into the changing rooms once we were done! Definitely a highlight of the trip!

After that, with the weather really clearing up, we heading to the Polynesian Spa to relax in one of the private hot spring pools. As mentioned, Rotorua is famous for the hot springs, and this spa allows a couple or a group to rent a private pool for 30 minutes. It was such a beautiful spot with views of the lake and a private rock pool with water that was about 100 degrees! It was nice to just relax and enjoy the scenery.

After our adventure and relaxation, we headed back to the hotel to get ready, enjoy our free bottle of wine and head to dinner that was included in our hotel package.

Sunday, we woke up and had breakfast and then headed off in search of the hobbits! Hobbiton is about an hour drive north of Rotorua (heading back toward Auckland) and the drive consisted of LOTS of pastures and sheep. We got to Hobbiton, got to see some of the sheep, then boarded a bus to drive through the sheep farm onto the actual movie set.

The farm is actually privately owned by a local family and is 1250 acres with roughly 13,000 sheep. Peter Jackson scouted out this place years ago on a trip to New Zealand and contracted with the family to let him use their land for the filming of the movies. We got to walk all through the set up and learn about what filming went on where. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of the movies, I will admit that this place was absolutely stunning and worth the trip to see.

All in all, it was a great weekend for a road trip! The weather cleared up in time for us to do our tour (although the next group...which we were supposed to be in...was not so lucky!) and we enjoyed seeing some new parts of New Zealand!

Cheers!