Thursday 12th January 2023
We had an early start to the day as we needed to be at the Rotorua Canopy Tours meeting place by 8am for our canopy tour. It was a bit of a wet and miserable day but we were provided with very good waterproof coats so it wasn’t a problem – and actually it ended to being a very good wet weather activity.
After getting kitted up, we boarded a minibus and were driven to the forest. It was then a short walk through the forest to the first zip line platform.
The canopy tour consisted of several zip lines and a couple of rope bridges. It was an incredible experience. We had so much fun on this tour and barely even noticed the wet weather.
The Canopy tour lasts 3 hours (although the time went super quickly!), so it was getting on towards lunchtime by the time we returned to the car park. We drove to Tirau, and ate lunch at Tucker Tirau, a cute little cafe. We ordered prawn dumplings and fish and chips, and the food was excellent. The dumplings in particular were amazing (just a shame there were only 4 of them). We were so impressed by the food that we bought one of their sausage rolls to take away with us.
We still had time to kill (as the Hobbiton Tour we’d booked didn’t start until 4pm) so we walked along Tirau high street and grabbed an ice cream at the One Road Ice Cream Company. The ice creams there were looking very tempting so we had 2 scoops each. I chose the salted caramel and the gingernut, and Pete went for the banana (obviously!) and the hokey pokey (which is basically a bit like little bits of broken up crunchy). It was only when we came to pay that we realised they don’t accept cards. This wouldn’t have been a problem, but Pete had put his wallet in the glovebox of the car when we did the Rotorua canopy tour and had forgotten to retrieve it. Luckily the staff were very understanding and let us eat our ice creams before we went back to the car to get the wallet and pay.
We returned to the car, stopped off at the ice cream shop to pay, then drove to Hobbiton. The movie set is on private land in the middle of a sheep farm, so you need to get on a coach to take you there.
I’ve watched all the Lord of the Rings films but can’t say I’m a huge fan (I found the book extremely hard going and gave up very soon into it!). Pete’s not seen the films or read the books. We both loved Hobbiton though, and luckily the rain had cleared by this time so we remained dry. The tour was very interesting and our guide was super engaging (although I did slightly tire of her constantly referring to us as “friends”). I especially like learning about / seeing the fake tree! It was pretty impressive!
After seeing all the hobbit holes, we then made our way towards the The Green Dragon Inn, passing by the Millhouse along the way.
At The Green Dragon Inn there was a choice of drink (ale, apple cider, or non alcoholic ginger beer) which was included as part of the ticket price. It was very atmospheric and felt a bit like being in an olde English pub.
After our Hobbiton tour, we shared the sausage roll we’d picked up to takeaway earlier. As we expected, it was an excellent sausage roll, very flavoursome with a great meat to pastry ratio.
We then drove to the Gamma Hotel in Aukland, where we were staying for the night. We checked in, dropped off our bags, then headed out for a light dinner at Ken Yakitori Bar Anzac. We ordered some chicken karaage, prawn dumplings, chicken thigh skewers, pork belly skewers, and pork and prawn skewers. The chicken karaage and dumplings were decent, but nothing special. The skewers though, were amazing! Especially the pork belly (the pork and prawn would also have been perfect if it wasn’t covered in mayonnaise!)
After eating, we walked back to the hotel for an early night.
Emma and Pete’s Asian Adventure 