Ella's favourite places in New Zealand

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The Best Places in New Zealand

By Ella Stainwright

We've been in New Zealand for only five weeks but we've done things that you can hardly imagine.  I can't tell you everything so I'll tell you my favourite things.

Hobbiton

We'd only been reading the Hobbit for a few days yet there we were at Hobbiton - the set of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings films.  The Hobbit holes that the Hobbits live in were nothing like what I'd imagined.  They were round doors, all different colours, with flowers and tables in their front garden.  Hobbiton was better than I'd imagined with the tree above Bilbo's Hobbit hole being fake and the tricks of size.  Sir Peter Jackson would place Bilbo far away to make him look smaller than Gandalf the wizard.  Sir Peter Jackson was also a big fan of using family and friends in the movies.  For example, when Sam comes home in Lord of the Rings the girl who runs up to him is his daughter and his wife is holding her real baby.  The funniest thing I learnt was that when Gandalf walked into the Hobbit hole he didn't bump his head on purpose but they left it in because it looked good.

Did you know?

Half the people that go to Hobbiton haven't read the books or watched the movies - just like us.

  

Tumble Down Hill Farm

This awesome place, we stayed at, had a tree with a hammock, a tree house, passages that led to a pine forest, lookout, a spring and other places like that.  From the tree house we could shoot plums in the stream and it was easy to remember the ways through the passages - we never got lost.

Did you know?

One passage way went to stumps that looked like thrones.

  

Horse Riding

We went horse riding and I got the biggest and grumpiest horse of the lot.  His name was Dale.   I trotted, played and groomed the horses.  We got to saddle the horses, mount them and we even got to clean them at the end.  At the end Dale got away from me and I had to chase after him.  It was so much fun.

Did you know?

You should never walk behind a horse.

The Hot Water Beach

The Hot Water Beach was sooooooooooooo much fun.  We dug in the sand finding a perfect spot after a while.  We dug and our hole filled with water creating a sand spa.  We covered Daddy in sand and he was gross to look at.  We would run in the water to get cold and we would jump in the waves and surf them too.  When we went back to the spa it felt like larva especially if you had been dunked by Daddy. 

Did you know?

The water is heated by thermal pockets       underneath that part of the beach.

White water rafting

We went rafting in a boat and we had to row through rocks and rapids.  Only one wave drenched us but it did more than that… we were almost flipped.  Half way through we got to feed the trout dark chocolate chips or so I thought. J.  Kaelie and I tried to fall out of the raft and at the end I almost disappeared down the rapids until a I realised I could stand up. J. 

Did you know?

Once a man flipped a school group of six over and that place was called Owen’s Wall named after the man who did the epic flip.

Sand Duning

We got to surf on a boogie board down two huge sand dunes – one with time to stop – one with splash water.  I went once with Mummy on each dune and the same with Daddy.  I went twice alone on the sand dune zooming down on my aqua board.  The splash dune went so much faster and I had my toe breaks in the whole time – at least more than the smaller dune.

Did you know?

The sand dunes weren’t near the beach.

The geyser – Lady Knox

We walked in a thermal wonderland park and watched an erupting geyser.  The ranger made it erupt and it was only meant to erupt 2 or 3 metres but it erupted 7 or 8.  It was so cool and I think it erupted high because it was naturally going to erupt anyway.  It was found by prisoners who were washing and dropped soap in the lake.  It erupted taking the prisoner’s clothes with it and they had to go off and search for their clothes.

Did you know?

The geyser would erupt naturally every 24 - 48 hours.