North on Holiday

Hello, everyone!
Last week we were on holiday, so Alexis and I trekked up to the North Island and had some grand adventures!

Our first stop was Wellington, where we were greeted in the airport by Gandalf swooping overhead on an eagle.  Shortly thereafter we dragged my rolling suitcase all the way to the Weta Caves.  That's where they make all the props for all sorts of movies, including Lord of the Rings.  There were some people still working in the shop when we got our tour.  It was really cool!  They even have a master swordsmith who forges the swords.  And they have to make about four or five of each prop for different uses in the movies,  all to the same level of intense detail.

After that, we got a great bus ride from this very nice bus driver, who took us right to our stop instead of having us catch a connection.  There we met up with our friend Leah, who's studying in Wellington.  She took us around the city, and it looks like a happening place!  We had dinner on Cuba Street, then strolled along the waterfront for their Lux festival of lights.  It was lovely.

 

The next day (Sunday) we were up with the sun.  We ran quickly to church, then sauntered over to the bus stop for our long ride to Tongariro National Park.  The weather was beautiful.  When we arrived, we ran into Becca, our friend from UC!  It was pretty late, so we just bought some wifi time and relaxed.  It's winter and not very busy, so we had our own room at the hostel.

The following morning we headed out to Whakapapa Village and the start of some hiking trails.  It was cold and drizzly, but it actually turned out to be quite pleasant for hiking.  The forest around the base of the volcanoes was great.  It was super green and mossy, and there was a racket of birdsong everywhere we went.  We even saw a type of owl called a morepork.  I kind of freaked out with excitement over all the cool plants.  When we got up into the shrubbier altitudes, the views were so pretty!  Even though it was cloudy, you could see all three volcanoes (including Mt. Doom) clearly.  Between hikes we had a warm meal at the cafe.  It turned out to be a great day.
The next day was sunny and warm again.  Go figure!

Next we bused up to Hamilton.  That was our home base for our next adventure, which was Matamata and Hobbiton!  The Hobbit village was lovely.  It was quaint and comfortable.  The level of detail that went into that entire set was amazing.  They even wired leaves onto the trees so they would look like native English trees rather than NZ flora.  At the end, we got complimentary ginger beer (non-alcoholic, in our case) at the Green Dragon Inn.  It was really good.  We said hello to Pickles, the cat, on our way out, and the entire bus ride back I watched the little knock-kneed lambs that were frolicking in the fields.



Our final adventure was to the Waitomo Glow-worm Caves.  We signed up for a tour, and right away you could tell it was a very nice cave.  It was big and open with lots of cool formations.  The coolest part of all, though, was the glow-worms.  A silent boat ride carried us down the underground river.  The only sound was the echoing drips of water.  Up above, thousands of glow-worms were scattered as little blue points of light across the black cave ceiling.  It was like a dense, bright milky-way of stars arching overhead.  It was so pretty!

Then came a long day in the airport, then some long days of finishing my homework, and here I am, back in the swing of things at Uni.