Hello from Hobbiton!

Well, on Tuesday night we headed out to the Hobbit for dinner but it was closed! Pah! So we went back to the hotel and had dinner at the Powderkeg again. Halfway through eating our lovely chicken, we spotted it wasn't cooked properly! Eeeeek! We informed the waitress who told us our dinner would be free, so we ordered cheesecake too. Well, if we were going to be sick may as well go the whole hog! Then it was back to the room to pack and worry about getting food poisoning.Wednesday 1st December:The alarm went off at 8am and breakfast was delivered soon after. Neither of us had been sick during the night, but I think the worry was making us a little queasy. We were determined not to let it ruin our holiday, so we hit the road. (Edit here!) We drove to the Waitomo Caves. The tour started with a little wander through the limestone caves, quite stunning really. Then we hopped into a little boat and floated through the pitch black into the Glow Worm Grotto. That was amazing! All the lights of the glow worms looked like stars in the night sky. After that we headed north to Hamilton. Lovely little town. We had lunch at Subway before hitting the shops! Honest mum, I'm not spending that much! But I did have to buy my Harry Potter DVD! Then we decided to go back to the hotel for a rest. The plan had been to spend the evening writing postcards, having a swim and possibly trying out the steam room and having dinner close by. But about 7.30pm I wasn't feeling 100% so the only place I was headed was bed. Val had to amuse herself for the evening as I was asleep in no time!Thursday 2nd December:Got up about 9am, feeling much better! Think I was just tired. Went into the bathroom to find a little orc Frodo sitting by the sink. One of the things Val had done to amuse herself last night was to buy me him! He's fab! Then we checked out of the hotel and headed for Matamata - home of Hobbiton. We had lunch at Ronnie's Cafe before booking onto the tour. We were taken right into the set where about half of the hobbit holes remain. We saw the party tree and the party field. Our guide, Eric, showed us where Gandalf and Frodo had ridden in on Gandalf's cart, where he let the fireworks off and where the kids had run after them. We wandered around to the lake and saw where the bridge and the mill had been. Then it was up the hill to Bag End. This is the hobbit hole you can actually walk inside. Looking out from Bag End is fantastic! You see Bilbo's view just as it was in the film. Sam's home in FOTR is still there, but unfortunately his home in ROTK, the final shot, is now just a mound of dirt. Apparently they are awaiting permission from Newline to rebuild it. The reason half of the set remains is because they had begun to tear it all down, but then the rain came in and they had to stop for six months. In that time, the owners of the farm asked Newline if they could keep the rest of the holes and set up the tours. Newline agreed. Once the tour was over we came back to the town and went back to Ronnie's for tea. And another cake - they have great cakes! Now we're sitting in the Hobbit Hole Internet Cafe. We'll be off to have a wander round the town now and then we are heading to Rotorua.