Because of the rain, we had to set up the plans on a daily basis for the following day (which looked like a complete washout in the morning and maybe dry in the afternoon south of Auckland), so we planned on visiting some caves in the morning and Hobbiton in the afternoon.
Glowworm Caves
On my earlier trip I had visited the Waitomo Glowworm Caves which had a short boat ride in the underwater caves and river. There are two other trips – one that had a more longer cave hike and the other where you suited up in a wet suit and waded/tubed down the river. I initially wanted to do the tubing trip (Called “Black Water Rafting”) but when looking at the requirements, I didn’t like the description “in a couple of places, you will have to go underwater and pull your self on a rope though a small cave to get to the other side” – so we went for the other tour. The Ruakuri Cave tour didn’t focus on glowworms as much in the advertisements but had just as many and allowed photos. It was a great cave tour with a good guide (who was a high school student with dreams of moving to the USA) and we saw the Black Water tubers going below us in the river. Another item I forgot is that the river is filled with eels who like the glowworms that fall from the ceiling – they also nibble on the legs of the Black Water rafters. So of the three options – I’d recommend Ruakuri.
Hobbiton
Off to Hobbiton – about 1.5 hours from the caves and the rain was stopping. Hobbiton is the permanent movie set for the Hobbit movies and was previously used as a temporary location for Lord of the Rings. Originally, the director of the movie found this farm and they filmed the first movie and dismantled the set – but over the next couple of years a bunch of Lord of the Rings groupies would come to make a pilgrimage. After filming the next film, rebuilding the set and tearing it down again, then dealing with more drunk Lord of the Ringers visiting, and deciding to film a new trilogy “The Hobbit”; the farmer who had leased the land suggested a permanent set and to offer tours and has this has become one of New Zealand’s major tourist attractions. Since I wasn’t familiar with the movies or books, I didn’t get a lot of the commentary, but the site was impressive with all of the Hobbit Holes (most were just the front) and over the last couple of years they have built out a couple of the holes to visit (70% human scale).
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