From Rio to New Zealand

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Last weekend was my birthday weekend in Rio de Janeiro, our last stop in South America. WE had a great couple of days exploring the Ipanema area and a little bit of Rio at large. We had a great birthday meal and then went out for some drinks... cappasumthings (not coffee) which were a great way to get the spin of the city really going! Our travels have made us both really cheap dates - only 2 drinks each and we were well tipsy! We then headed to Christ the redeemer with a hangover which was perhaps not the smartest thing to do - but we didnt have to climb any stairs as we caught the train up and then got the rest of the way by escalators - how lazy is that!

Anyway from Rio we flew round to Auckland loosing the 13th in the process - not quite sure what happened there! some kind of twilight zone going on im sure!

We have now been in NZ for 5 days and have been wizzing round the North island seeing the sights. We started with a quick tour of a bit of Northland and then headed down to hobbiton where we begun to feel more at home. We toured the film set -the only one with set still left in place, and even managed to get our pictures taken in bag end, bilbos house! It was crazy seeing what they did to the land, raising some parts by 30ft, the army building roads, changing apples trees into plum trees and cutting down an oak tree from 50 miles away only to reassemble it with fake leaves bought in from taiwan! As it was filmed on a farm, we also got the chance to see sheep being sheared and fed baby lambs! Apparently there are 10 sheep to every 1 person in New Zealand! Murray, who sheared the sheep could manage about 300 a day, but the record on that farm is 600 in a day!! It's a competitive sport here.

We have also been to see some geysers, and saw a maori dance being performed with the haka included. A real effort has been made to preserve the Maori culture here and to make it acessable to visitors. It was a lot of fun to see, including the traditional welcome ceremony, with a Liverpudlian acting as our leader!?! (speaking of which, hope you had a great birthday Adam! x)

Finally we have visited some glowworm caves where we went down 40m into a cave system, seeing stalagtites and stalagmites before heading down to an underground river where we were taken on a boat ride illuminated by thousands of glowworms, like stars on the cave roof.

We are about to dissapear on a 4 day canoe trip tomorrow and are hoping it doesn't rain too much more today so the river can go down some. Aparrently it has been unusually bad with major storms for the last week, starting just when we arrived! Hopefully the forcast will be correct that it should be better for the next week. Our only other concern is meeting banjo playing locals enroute....

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Photos

warrior welcoming us
the offering of the leaf signified peace if we picked it up - was the liverpudlian leader a wise choice we were thinking at this point? only kidding...

Hobbiton
the motherland

Happy Birthday Meal
...the waiters kept this, maybe for next year ;)

Us and Christ the Redeemer
...slightly hungover - it's so bright in heaven!

View from Christ the Redeemer
Looking across to Sugar Loaf. Thankfully what you can't see is Ipanema Beach to the right and all those speedos....aaargh!

The firework tree in Hobbiton
Apparently when Gandalf first appears the kids ask him to let off fireworks which he does by this tree.

Hobbit holes
or as Keith likes to point out - koala faces

Party tree and lake
yes we even had a little dance...sad, very sad we know

view from bilbos house with 2 hobbits and party tree
...we have to get all the jokes in before you do! yes, we know we're short, we were the only ones he didnt tell to watch your heads as we got on the bus!