Exploring NZ’s North Island
Ever since New Zealand Årst launched its greatest tourist campaign The Lord of the Rings, I knew I had to visit the land of the long white cloud. It was calling to me like how the “One Ring” called to Frodo when he was trying to destroy it (apologies if you haven’t seen these movies). I stood no chance. Those beautiful rivers, paddocks, forests and mountains were just too stunning to not want to see in person, and last year I Ånally decided it was time to see what Middle Earth — I mean New Zealand — had to offer.
This was the Årst time I had ever travelled to a country where English was the Årst language and I was pretty excited as I got ready to board the AEight with my boyfriend last month.
But because I was heading to a country which — from what I’d heard — was pretty similar to Australia, I was less prepared to go there than I had ever been to travel anywhere in my life.
And boy, did that realisation hit me hard when I got off the plane and an ATM rejected my travel money card.
Don’t worry, it was okay, turned out it wasn’t a friendly machine and didn’t like most people’s cards.
Next up, we acquired our silver Toyota Corolla rental car that we were responsible for not destroying for the next two weeks.
It took us about 40 minutes to Ånd the airport hotel because neither of us was prepared with a map and we couldn’t use our phones. So we drove around for awhile until we realised our hotel was about Åve minutes away from the car rental place.
After we’d checked in, we went off to explore Auckland.
This involved us driving towards the city and hoping we’d just Ågure out where to go once we got there — this holiday was built on optimism that we wouldn’t get lost.
Our goal was to Ånd a place called Burger Fuel that was rumoured to have amazing burgers.
After asking two American women for directions, because we thought they might have been Kiwis, we discovered that the majority of New Zealanders were really in Australia.
New Zealand is mainly inhabited by tourists and expats, it would seem.
But we did Ånd some locals who pointed us in the right direction and I Ånally got to order the most amazing cheese burger I have ever eaten in my life.
I then proceeded to talk about how life-changing that burger was for me for about a week until I visited Burger Fuel in Wellington where I Ånally felt satisÅed with the amount of burgers I’d eaten.
We also went to the Sky Tower which had an amazing view of Auckland city.
The next day we headed off to the Bay of Islands to enjoy a few days of beach life.
Along the way we stopped and walked around a forest near Wayby and then got some lunch at a cafe.
In retrospect this was a great decision because the trafÅc was so slow getting to the Bay of Islands I probably would’ve died of hunger before we’d arrived there otherwise.
The next day we were up bright and early for a tour around the area.
It was at this point that I began to discover I was quite talented — at falling asleep on buses. Every time we got back in the bus I’d just fall asleep.
Apparently the driver told us lots of information about New Zealand while I was snoozing. I managed to stay awake long enough to hear that there are six sheep to one person in New Zealand and that’s all I can remember.
After the Bay of Islands we headed to Hobbiton in Matamata where I Ånally lived out my fantasy of drinking ginger ale in the Green Dragon. This wasn’t a long-held fantasy, I was just really thirsty and was pretty happy when I was told I could get a drink.
We also posed for a few photos in front of Hobbit Holes, dressed as Hobbits, and learned about how they Ålmed The Lord of
the Rings and The Hobbit. Hobbiton was actually a lot more commercial than I thought it would be and it almost felt like we were being herded around like cattle.
But, that being said, it was a lot of fun and is a must if you’re a Lord of the Rings fan travelling to the North Island of New Zealand.
After we Ånished at Hobbiton we set a course to Rotorua where, upon entering the town, we were greeted with the smell of sulphur. The entire town smelled of rotten eggs because the area is situated on lots of geysers, which we got to take a closer look at when we went to Te Puia and also Hells Gate where we had a mud bath and a sulphur bath.
Just a word of warning for anyone thinking of ever having a sulphur bath: