Our last day travelling on to Auckland through Matamata where the hobbit's live in Lord of the Rings and the filming of The Hobbit is about to start, we didn't stop but the small volcanic hills which abound in this part of the country make it easy to see how they could be 'converted'. We also passed a Maori grave site. They are always on hills with the most important people being buried in the top plots and the rituals going on for a couple of days or more while everyone celebrates the life of the deceased.
Auckland has over a quarter of the population of NZ and is a huge city by comparison with the others including the capital Wellington but like that also built round a huge harbour area with lots of bays and beaches.
An iconic tower and some fancy skyscrapers (most boring of which has PWC all over it for my accountancy followers)
Dock area produced a nice visual,
with a huge container port, alongside the cruise liners.
A lovely meal out overlooking the harbour with one of my fellow travellers completed my stay in NZ. It was called Grand Adventure Tour and it lived up to it's name rather too well at times but I have wonderful memories of amazing scenery, flora and fauna, I am not surprised that people come back and I certainly didn't find it boring to visit, helped along by a good bunch of fellow travellers.
So Sydney next stop, back to travelling by myself.
Your NI notes and pics took us back to our last visit (in 1995!), need to do our bit for tourism here now and make it top of the list next summer. Hope you enjoyed the contrasts between N and S, scenery and cultures (and wines!) Mike and Lori
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