Today is our second full day in Rotorua. - This is the most we have spent anywhere on our trip so far. First stop of the day was the Agroventures, an adventure park which was located on a farm just outside Rotorua. As we arrived, we were greeted by ostriches and long horned cows in the paddock next door, and ducks and chickens wandering loose in the car park. Agroventures is a working farm, and if you choose you can see sheep shearing, cow milking, egg laying etc, etc, but we were not here for the farm, we were here for the adventures.
The park offers a wide range of adventure activities, including bungee jumping, jet boating, schweebing (a bicycle powered monorail), The swoop (a giant 40m high freefall swing) and the freefall, a large turbine that allows you to stay suspended in the air similar to free falling (if you are good enough). We bought a family pass which included eight “tokens”. This means that we all got to participate in 2 activities each (not including the bungee, as this cost four tokens).
Paul was first up and decided to give the “freefall” a try. After putting on a flying suit (a special pair of overall with additional material under the arms and between the legs), and donning a pair of goggles, it was time to go outside onto the turbine. The turbine was turned on and Paul soared into the air. It was hard to stay in the air stream, but fortunately there was a person holding Paul's feet and keeping him pointed in the right direction.
Next up Josh and Daniel decided to try the Schweebing. Each of them climbed into a a small carriage suspended from a monorail. There is a pair of pedals inside each carriage, and the idea is to race each other around the track. Poor Daniel struggled to reach the pedals, but just managed. After three laps, Josh had pulled clear, but Daniel was not too far behind.
This time Mazz and Daniel chose to go on the Jet Boat, which was a fast three loops around a water course. It didn’t look that fast when you watched but sitting in the boat was a huge rush. At the end of the course the driver does a 360!
Mazz was still trying to decide what to use her next token on and finally decided to choose the Swoop! While she waited in line, Paul and Josh had their turn on the Jet boat. Mazz's turn on the Swoop finally arrived, but she was too chicken to go by herself, so one of the Maori guys working there went on with her. When they were pulled up to the 40m height, the guy with Mazz pulled the chord on the count of three and they began plummeting towards the ground. The first few seconds are the scariest part during the free fall and drop but then you go into the swing which was not so scary. Mazz was happy she decided to do the swoop as is probably the closes thing she will get to bungy jumping.
All out of tokens, we headed back to the car, and made our way to our next stop, the “Hobbition” movie set.
The Hobbit village of “Hobbiton” is located on a sheep farm just outside of Matamata, about an hours drive away from Rotorua. When the original “Lord of the Rings” movies were filmed, the village of “Hobbition” was made out of plywood and styrofoam, all cunningly painted to look real. At the end of filming, the village was scheduled to be dismantled and returned to the original condition, but due to a storm the demolition work was delayed for a week. Suddenly the farmer had LOTR fans turning up on his doorstep wanting to know about the movie and where it was filmed. When the Hobbit movie was filmed, the Director needed to return to the farm (and to the village of “Hobbiton”) to film new scenes, so this time the farmer negotiated that the film set be made permanent, and he be allowed to conduct tours. - Looks like he was a pretty smart guy.
The movie set cannot be seen from the road as it is set about 2kms into the sheep farm, so we bought our tickets and boarded a tour bus and set off on a tour of the movie set. They must be pretty popular, as a tour (consisting of about 25 people) commences every 10 minutes. The village looks exactly like you expect it to look, which is not surprising as it is exactly where the movie was made. They must employ a huge team of gardeners, as there are flowers and vegetable growing in all of the gardens, and it looks as if the Hobbits could return at any time! There are actually 44 Hobbit holes in the village, that we wandered around, including Bag End (Bilbo and Frodo's house). It was interesting to note that some of the Hobbit houses are made at 100% scale (to make a human actor look hobbit sized), and others are made at 60% to make a human actor appear much larger than a Hobbit. (Those clever movie people!).
Last stop was the Green Dragon Tavern, where there was time to sample some genuine Shire Ale, Cider or Ginger beer! After that, it was back onto the bus, a short stop at the Hobbiton souvenir shop and then time to make our way back to Rotorua for Dinner
The movie set cannot be seen from the road as it is set about 2kms into the sheep farm, so we bought our tickets and boarded a tour bus and set off on a tour of the movie set. They must be pretty popular, as a tour (consisting of about 25 people) commences every 10 minutes. The village looks exactly like you expect it to look, which is not surprising as it is exactly where the movie was made. They must employ a huge team of gardeners, as there are flowers and vegetable growing in all of the gardens, and it looks as if the Hobbits could return at any time! There are actually 44 Hobbit holes in the village, that we wandered around, including Bag End (Bilbo and Frodo's house). It was interesting to note that some of the Hobbit houses are made at 100% scale (to make a human actor look hobbit sized), and others are made at 60% to make a human actor appear much larger than a Hobbit. (Those clever movie people!).
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