Bought more time :)

So the next day we got a bus from Rotorua - Wellington, the bus drivers are so nice here! There tell you what you might see out the window, what to do at the next station if your changing and they and generally very churpy! Not at all like National Express drivers! lol.

As we drove South through the North Island the landscape changed massively, it went from hobbity and farmy to massive mountains, some even snow-capped and there was even a desert area! Lovely lovely country.

When we got to the Wellington the bus driver asked where we were going and took us pretty much all the way to our hostel after letting everyone off at the terminus, he then told us the way to our hostel and about the area, amazing guy! :)

We got settled into our room, a 4bed dorm for 3 of us, niiiiice! We then went out for dinner, Quesdillas with spinach and feta with curly fries to share! yummers. Today we went up in a cable car and walked around the botanical gardens which were cool, lots of exotic plants you would never see in botanical gardens at home, as well as a very colourful rose garden and an lovely smelling fragrance garden! Then we got on a bus and went to the WETA workshop where they made alllll the props and scenery minatures for Lord of The Rings! They can't let you see much because of confidentiality but there was loads of the famous swords from it like Frodo's one, sting that glows blue when orcs are near (we were ok, it wasn't blue! lol) and arwen's swoards as well as the broken one that is kept at Rivendell in the film! They also had on display the model of gimli that the guy that did the doubling for him wore, the little model of frodo that arwen carried while she was riding with him on her horse AND Saurons metal crazy glove thing! They had so many cool models you could buy and loads of jewellery like: Arwen's necklace, THE ring and the broochy things the hobbits use to do up their cloaks! Finally, they had a cloak thing like the ones they wore you could buy! Basically, it was AMAZING! We all ended up buying these keyrings made of the actual chainmaile they used in the film, and while we were paying for it the guy told us that Elijah Wood had been there yesterday! I was so shocked, if only we'd been there a day earliar! LOL

We then headed back into town, in awe and jealous of anyone involved in the making of LOTR, and walked along the waterfront. The jealousy was assuaged with some tasty gelato and by watching loads of people doing rowing! All in all a very pleasant afternoon! On the way back to the hostel we bought food in order to do our first bit of cooking!

Mmmmm Pasta, 0lives and salad!

xxxxx