North Island

 
Again, apologies to our avid readers ( :P) for the delay in writing, we haven't had fast, available wifi in a while. So we collected Big Bertha, and shes a beaut, we don't know ourselves with all this space and have numerous options for sleeping! The luxury of these big self contained vehicles is that you can 'Freedom Camp' with them, so you can literally park up anywhere and stop over for the night so you save on paying for a site at a holiday park and can stop in some beautiful locations in the middle of nowhere and be on your own in the wilderness! Such great spots in this part of the hemisphere for star gazing.
 
So our first night in Bertha we stopped at a beautiful spot called 'Lake Kerr' not a whisper, so calm, quiet and clear skies (we could see the Milky Way'. We decided to plug her in and charge her up for the first few nights to allow us to freedom camp. We couldn't find the lead to connect to the power so we decided to leave and go for an umpowered site and try figure it our in the morning so we went and knocked on the owner of the sites door (who lives on site in a caravan) it was late at this stage and lights were off, he finally answered and we explained the sitch and that we could move to a different site,  I insisted it was ok we could try find it ourselves in the morning but he nodded and whispered 'Ill get my torch', such a legend, he was only delighted to help. Was something really comforting about it.
 
The next morning we woke to a beautiful sky and the lake was glistening. We had another long drive ahead of us so we set off early. Fully charged!
We made our way to 'Cambridge' after 4 hours where we discovered the site of the Shire (Hobbiton movie set) was back half hour in MataMata so we decided to stay there for the night to go the net morning.
 
Matamata is such a beautiful picturesque location and its no wonder it was the setting of The Shire. Rolling hilld and drumlins for millless!!!! So green, lush and definelty a very magical feeling in the air. We were like excited school children off on their first school tour the next morning and we actually found a charity shop where we scoured for any LOTR movies to watch (we had a dvd in our campervan, I know, v.snazz!!)
We could only find The Two Towers so we grabbed a pizza and a few shneaky beers and headed for a spot to park up. We found a lovely spot right beside an old tower looking out over the fields.
 
 
The next morning we headed for The Shire!!!!!! Giddy as!!! We had our tour booked for 10.30am. (Hoping there were no Chinese on our tour!!!)
 
The windy road that leads to it is called Buckland road (and actually Pippin mentions it in the two towers!!) felt every bit like you were arriving to the Shire. Its actually a sheep/dairy farm owned by a local. When Peter Jackson arrived in New Zealand to scout for locations, he flew over in a helicopter, he was originally looking for a location for Bilbos birthday party and stopped on this site and knocked on their door, they toured it. The illustrators sat themselves on the top and looked out over the land and drew out the entire Shire and decided instead of having different sites for it, they could fit it all in as one village. So Peter had to kindly tell all the other locations they were out!
 
Anyway, so we arrived and had a coffee in 'The Shires Rest' before our lovely host took us by coach to the shire. Lovely Welsh lad, who was obviously a genuine fan and knew his stuff!
 
The tour itself was incredible and felt so surreal to be walking around it. He played out the different scenes that happened and where and gave some behind the scenes stories. I wont give any away in case any of you go!
We also decided after our tour to build a hobbit hole in our future garden!
 
 
We spent an extra night in Matamata and then made our way to Auckland to reluctantly dope off Bertha!
 
 
We had one night in Auckland City were we visited an observatory for a show. Really interesting to learn about the stars in the Southern Hemisphere as the sky we see in the Northern H is different.
 
The next day we made our way to Devonport which is a ferry ride north of the city. We stayed with a friend of my Dads in his beautiful home with his wife and two adorable kids.
The first day we arrived they had a lovely bbq with some friends.
They showed us all around the area and caught some great views of the city from their side.
Beautiful idyllic town with beaches, walks, museums and beautiful neighbourhoods!
 
The day we were due to leave the rain was insane!!!! Strong winds too......it was the tail end of the Cyclone that attached Oz the previous week. We were nervous our flight to Rarotonga wouldn't leave. It did fortunately and we left for our tour of the South Pacific!
 
 
 
 



































































 










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