In the morning I got up and packed my stuff into the car...time for church! I had forgotten to check the time for that church, but I figured it started at 10:30. As I'm driving there, listening to the Christian radio station, the announcer says, "If you're listening to this you've either slept in for church or you're going to a late service." What?!?! It was like they were talking directly to me. Turns out church typically starts at 9:30/10am in NZ. Didn't know that...too used to North American 11am services.
So I was a little bit late, but it didn't matter, the church was lame, haha. No one welcomed me, the speaker was mumbling and it was impossible to understand what he was saying because of his accent. What I did understand wasn't too deep anyways. After the service no one came up to me, so I left after standing around for 5 mins.
From there I knew exactly where I was going...ZORBING!!!
It took me a little while to find it, but when I did I was pretty excited. As you can see, zorbing is the NZ sport of sitting in a big rubber ball and rolling down the hill. They put a little bit of water inside otherwise you would get burns from rubbing against the plastic.
As you can see here, when you get out it's like being born again!
There are two options for going down: Straight down with much speed...
Or down a curved track: Not as fast, but bumpy with lots of sloshing around. I went with the curved track. I couldn't wear my glasses so I put contacts in, but the dumb thing was you can't even see out when you're in there! It's strange cause you can totally see the person inside, but when you're in there, it's just grey and hazy colours. It was also quite expensive (and not really worth it in my opinion). It was kinda like being on a waterslide, but you only get one ride and you can't see anything. All for 40 bucks!!!
My next destination was a mystery to me. I didn't really know what to do next. I knew my last day or two would be in Auckland, but I still had a couple days in between. One thing someone told me was cool was Cape Reinga. It's the northern tip of New Zealand. I knew it would be a long drive, but I really wanted to check it out. So I decided that's what I'd do. I hit the highway and away I went!
As I was puttering along enjoying the highways with zero traffic I saw a sign saying Matamata was ahead. "Wait a minute, that's where Hobbiton is!" I remarked to my invisible friend Roger. When I was looking at my guide book earlier for things to do, I considered going there but the book didn't give a very good review, and I briefly glanced at the price and thought it was really expensive. Well, as I was coming up to it I thought I'd recheck the book and when I did I was shocked. The price was a whole lot cheaper than I had thought!! I had lots of time and nothing else planned really so I pulled up to the tourist place and asked them about tours. Turns out one was leaving in 5 mins!!! I signed up, paid the fee, hopped on the bus and away I went.
And here I am!!!
When Peter Jackson was scouting out places he came across this place from a helicopter because it had the giant tree near a lake (perfect for Bilbo's party). He had a few locations booked for Hobbiton but when he actually went to the farm he soon realized he wanted to film it all here! This one spot is secluded in a small valley making it impossible to see from outside the property (great for keeping the filming secret). Also, the only visible man-made structure is a barn far off in the distance. No powerlines, no roads, no nothing except that one building to crop out when filming.
The weird thing about the location is everything is all squished in one spot, but in the film it looks like it's all spread out.
Gandalf drives in at the beginning.
Here you can see all the Hobbit holes are in the same area. 
This place was pretty lucky because all the other locations for the LOTR movies had to be taken apart. When they came to take down this site, it started dumping rain and their vehicles would rip up the ground too much...so they said they would come back a few months later. In the meantime tourists starting showing up wanting to see it. The owners realized they could do something with this and struck up a deal with New Line. They couldn't redo the holes to look like they did in the movie. The reason they don't now is because all the materials were temporary (primarily styrofoam type materials painted to look real). They were allowed to paint them all white so that they would be more visible. They're also not allowed to dress up as characters or perform any lines from the movies. They sure had a lot of information and pictures showing what it did look like though.
Here we see Bilbo doing the famous birthday speech at the party tree.
Here's the tree today
And me under it, I didn't realize it was so huge. I look like a hobbit!!!
Here's the bridge crossing the lake.
And this is where it was...not much to look at now, but interesting nonetheless. The bridge was completely fake and needed to be taken out.
This is Sam's house at the end of the movie.
Unfortunately, it was one of the holes to be torn down before the rain came. This is where it was and my tour guide (who wasn't nearly as attractive as the other group's guide).
Gandalf pulling up to Bag-End.
And Bag-End today...notice all the other hobbit holes below you don't see in the same shot of the movie?
Bilbo's front door all done up...
Not as pretty today
Get lost! I'm trying to write a book!!!
Bilbo and Gandalf looking down on the party
A little empty today.
The local sheep, not featured in the movies because they didn't have the black snouts.
Funny growing tree, supposedly it's in the movie, but I don't know when.
This sign is at the entrance to Matamata. Nice statue of Gollum there. After the tour I drove as far as I could ending up in Whangarei (pronounced Fangaree?!?). The hostel was closed for checking in so I had to go to a hotel. It was pretty snazzy. I watched an episode of the Dead Zone on TV. Never seen it before, it was kind of interesting.
Fell fast asleep. End of Day Seventeen.
