Sunday, November 13, 2011

Sheep and Hobbits


Shannon was really looking forward to the sheep show at the Agrodome today to see all the different kinds of sheep and what makes them different.

The Agrodome was a few minutes away from town and was actually a farm as well as an attached and unrelated Agroventures which had a bunch of thrill rides if you were so inclined.

We dropped $40 to see the sheep show which was kind of interesting. About 16 or so different types of sheep were introduced to the audience with the nice fluffy merino being the star attraction. There was also a sheep shearing demonstration and two types of sheep dogs shown including the staring eye dog which was pretty neat.

We got to take a few pictures with sheep and then stop over next door where some newborn lambs were penned for some petting. Baby animals are always so cute.

On the way out, we stopped by the Zorb. Now normally, I'm all for paying for one of a kind experiences, but the Zorb has got to be the fastest way to have your money parted from you ever. For $36,  you get zipped up inside the Zorb sphere and rolled down the hill. The whole ride is no more than 20 seconds which was pretty ridiculous. Maybe if you got a couple of rides, or allows you can ride for an hour, but at that price, I just got a picture and we moved on.


We drove about an hour to Matamata. Driving through NZ, we frequently pass towns whose lifeline are the highways that crisscross through the country. The average sized town in NZ is about 7000 with the total population about 4 million. That really gives you an idea about the size of the place. There really are no "big" cities so living here would definitely change one's perspective on the size of a community. Moving to Red Deer with 90000 people would be like a metropolis here.

A farm just outside of Matamata is where Hobbiton is located, the set of the movie Lord of the Rings. The owners of the land convinced the movie studio to not take down the set and have it as a tourist attraction. It was really neat to see, almost like another Warner Brothers tour. But the whole shire was there from the Party tree to Bilbo's house and the Green Dragon. A neat bit of trivia include the "sunset" where Gandalf and Bilbo were smoking pipes was actually filmed during sunrise because of the landscape. Whenever I come on to these sets, I feel it's too bad that most of the buildings are actually facades.

Shannon and I aren't huge LOTR fans but appreciated the tour nonetheless. Later, we'll have to watch the movie again to appreciate the full NZ LOTR connection.

We went back to Rotorua where we wandered around the town. The thing with small towns, which all of NZ's towns are, is that they pretty much don't have night life, especially on Sundays.

We enjoyed Kuirau Park, a public park spotted with numerous bubbling hot springs, mud and other volcanic activity. It was really nice to find a place in NZ that didn't charge you to see something. In NZ it seems, to do or see anything, someone has to make a buck off you.

We strolled around the Museum grounds. The Museum used to be a really posh bath house for the "rich, ill, and famous." It's interesting how hot springs are somehow connected to healing. The park was free with a nice rose garden, and we skipped paying $10 to see the museum.

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