Hobbits!

Te Aroha didn't have much excitement for us as it was pouring with rain. The thermal pools didn't seem such a great idea so we headed to a nearby campsite and settled in for the day. We watched tv and cooked dinner ready for the next day, hoping for better weather. After a night of rain,  the morning was bright and dry! We decided to head to nearby Matamata which we had never heard of, but is famous for being the setting of Hobbiton in the Lord of the Ring & Hobbit films. I've never watched them, but Jay was excited and there was a free drink at the Green Dragon pub.

We bought our tickets and headed to the countryside. Peter Jackson found the land in a helicopter and paid the local family to use it for the films. After the locals got wind of what was going on they all wanted to see the hobbit holes so the family convinced PJ to let them keep them. Hobbiton is entirely intact and how it was in the films and was amazing to see regardless of seeing the films or not. The attention to detail was incredible.  We even met a star! The local cat who lives in the pub is apparently in the third hobbit film and loves live in a cosy pub with lots of attention! It was a great day out. Next we were heading to Rotarua,  the geothermal capital of New Zealand!

Thames, no river but might as well be!

We arrived in Thames hopeful of a nice campsite in the countryside bonding with nature just like we imagined.  Twenty minutes up a gravel track we reached the campsite and were ready to settle down for the evening. Despite the weather being on and off all day, we were still cheerful and hopeful. This didn't last long when we realised it the campsite was closed due to flooding. We headed back on the windy and wet gravel back to the centre. The only other place to stay was basically a glorified car park with a room for showers, cooker and seats. This night might well be our most memorable. We parked up and went for a wander round the town which reminded me of a stereotypical American town.

When we got back we had just sat in Carlos when a man came and knocked on our window and told us to come in.  In England people keep themselves to themselves so being invited in by a stranger was not what we expected. There were 3 older couples, one being a Somerset couple. They kept pouring wine and were getting more and more merry.  An American couple joined us too. The night went on pretty late with travel and camping stories. Writing it now,  it doesn't sound amazing,  but drunken older people can be hilarious!

The following day we were all ready to head around the Coromandel peninsular. All packed up and ready to go, we were told the roads were flooded and to head South instead. We consulted the map and headed to Te Aroha!

Bay of Islands

After picking up our camper, we hit the road leaving Auckland for the north, and more specifically, the Bay of Islands. On the way out of the city we noticed a Pak n Save, a New Zealand supermarket. We duly stopped for our first food shop of the trip. Pak n Save was ace, not too expensive and plenty of bargains, although it became clear that fruit and veg is expensive in New Zealand. After stocking up on pasta, sauce, rice, bread, biscuits (even some vegan cookies) and other bits and pieces, we were back on the road, however not for long as we had to stop at a service station to pay for the only toll road in the country. It did also give us an opportunity to have lunch. So after lunch, we hit the road once again to head up north. During the day the weather wasn't particularly great and it didn't get any better the further north we went, but that didn't put us off and we carried on anyway. The roads weren't too busy once we had got away from Auckland and there was some pretty cool scenery despite the weather. The roads were however quite different to England as they were a lot more bendy, having to wind around mountains and scale fairly steep hills, which I found weren't much fun in an automatic van. Around four hours after picking the van up, we were well into the northern region with still no improvements in the weather. If anything it was worse, with very heavy downpours and lots of flooding in the fields alongside the road, and in some areas, where the fields were obviously quite saturated, water was getting worryingly close to the road itself. However we carried on and stopped at a petrol station to refill. I was surprised to find someone already waiting for me before I had even reached the pump, ready to refuel for me. It seemed a bit old school but I didn't complain, plus they were able to warn us about the flooding further north and to expect possible road closures. Still we carried on, not getting the hint. It wasn't until we got to around 25km from Paihia, one of the towns in the Bay of Islands, that we came across a 4x4 parked over both sides of the road. The driver got out and informed us that the road north was closed due to flooding, and the only other possible route left to take wasn't far off being closed either. This news wasn't what we wanted after a good three and a half hour drive. However we didn't think waiting around for the weather to improve was the best thing to do, so decided to head back down south so not to waste too much time. It was about 5pm by this point, so after around an hours drive back in the direction we had just come from, we stopped in a town called Whagarei, where we found a nice little holiday park to spend the night. 

After arriving, parking up and plugging in, we cooked our first meal in Carlos, pasta obviously, despite there being an on sight kitchen and the fact it was still raining. 

The next morning we had breakfast in the van, and made use of the shower facilities before making our way back down south. A few hours went by before we reached Auckland, however this time passing through it. The weather at this point was quite nice and the city skyline with the sky tower looked quite pleasant, which was typical as the four days we had spent there before were all either, wet, windy, stormy or a combination of all three. Anyway, we carried on, hopeful the clear skies would continue. Our destination at this point was a town called Thames, with our plan to stay there before driving around the Coromandel Peninsula, weather dependant obviously....

Auckland

We arrived in Auckland around lunchtime and spend a good few hours getting through customs.  They don't like you bringing anything in and we had to declare our wooden swords from Fiji and our dry noodles. Quite a faff really.  We took a shuttle into the city centre and found our hostel.  After settling in we went on a walk round the centre and found somewhere to have a burger.  Aucklands a nice city but is a more business city than anything else. We had a quiet chilled night at the hostel as they have free meals in the evening. 

On our second day we went on a free walking tour of the city organised by our hostel.  We saw the harbour, sky tower, parks, art galleries and some shops. It was interesting to learn more about the city, although I can't now remember anything they said! We had lunch at a veggie restaurant called Revive which was really nice. After wandering around the city some more we headed back to the hostel. There was a pub quiz that night and we were pretty excited, after 3 weeks of nothing in Fiji, that's what happens!  So we had dinner and sat down waiting for everyone else. After about half an hour sitting in an empty bar it was clear it wasn't happening so we went to play some cards.

The weather in Auckland was horrendous.  Windy and rainy. The two things we wanted to do; Mount Eden and the sky tower, we needed good weather.  So we were stuck with not an awful lot to do. So we went to the cinema and watched 22 Jump street which was really good.  Followed by a burrito and it was a great day.

Our last day in Auckland was spent mostly looking around the shops. It became clear that we didn't quite have the right clothes for New Zealand so we bought a few jumpers in preparation.

The next day around 10 we headed to the Escape office to pick up our new van. They spent ages going through insurance and maintenance but all we wanted to do was look at what van we got. They all have different patterns and pictures on the side. We got a good one.  It was one based on South America.  We called him Carlos and headed North.