Our day on Monday started extra early. About 2:26 am, no exactly 2:26 am the smoke detector fired off in the three story condo, bedroom on the third floor so you could get a view of the ocean, that served as our hotel room for these two nights in Whitianga. We rushed down two flights of stairs, checked for smoke and fifteen minutes later, the alarm silenced. So, as sure as we could be that there was no fire, we had just laid back in the bed when the damn thing fired off again. We had no phone in the room other than our cells, so we frantically looked for the Ocean Resort office number, finding it on a map in 5 point font and finally getting a tired, yet live voice to answer. Not a 24/7 manned office. A cranky on call person said they would send someone to us straight-away. About 10 minutes later an older gentleman with a short ladder came and yanked the battery out of the smoke alarm, thanked us for being so understanding, we had not cursed him so bonus points to us. And we tried to go back to sleep. Needless to say, not our most restful night. But up bright and early, fortified with coffee we went on to meet Alex and start our day.
Crystal Cove was our first stop after a lovely breakfast. Instead of the 200 meter ferry ride, we circumnavigated the bay in the car. About 40 minutes later we parked the car, hopped on a shuttle bus and got to a trailhead to hike to Crystal Cove. A beach with fantastic rock formations and caves. Popular spot, not as difficult a hike as we imagined, although the trip back made us thankful we had been in Kendra’s spin class working on cardio.
Next stop was a place called the Hot Water Beach. Crazy time in NZ. This beach has thermal streams that run underneath the sand and at low tide folks take spades out on the sand, dig a pit and voila, instant hot tub, minus the bubbles. There a some parts of the beach that are painful to walk across as the water gets to nearly 65 degrees Celsius, just get Google to convert that to Fahrenheit Americans but believe me it’s hot. We decided not to bathe, just enjoy the sight as we had a fairly long car ride ahead.
We drove inland, from tropical ocean beaches to incredible hilly pasture land for sheep and cattle. A quick late lunch in Matamata, then out to the farm that had been turned into the Hobbit Shire from Tolkien for the movies made by Sir Peter Jackson. Location scouts had found this perfect farm, the film company had built a set to replicate the book and after it was torn down after the Lord Of The Rings trilogy was filmed and then rebuilt for the Hobbit movies it has become one of the top tourist destinations in NZ. Crazy attention to detail, fantastic pastoral setting and some Hollywood magic dust made it an incredible visit. Bonnie, who has neither read the books or seen the movies was delighted nonetheless because of the beautiful gardens, immaculate conditions and of course the sheep.
We ended our long day checking into the B&B and crashing.
