After biking the last 50 kilometres, we were at Hobbiton! This is where they first filmed the Shire scenes in The Lord of the Rings; they tore it down, but rebuilt it for The Hobbit!

The tour was about two hours, but it felt much shorter. And that was mainly looking at hobbit holes!

Not much else to say, but it was a lovely tour, and a really good tour guide.

There was a camping real close to Hobbiton, where we would stay for the night. Really cheap as well, as not much were included, but nice views of mountains far away!

In the morning we asked some people if we could possibly hitchhike with them, but they were not going in the right direction, or would have too small of a car. The first part would be pretty short though, and so we biked to see the Blue Spring! A short walk from the parking lot, and you would see really clear water with a beautiful colour!

Back at the parking lot I saw a big bus with four people coming out of it. It looked like a tour bus, but I asked  where they were headed, which was the same direction as we were (Rotorua), and if they could take us with them. The tour guide had to ask his three customers, who said yes without hesitating. As they were going to check out the spring we just hanged around for an hour before they came back, and loaded our bikes onto the bus!

They had a stop to do before Rotorua, being the OGO balls. We decided we could try it as well! As our biking clothes were not that clean, we went in those instead of changing before. It was like a big washing machine!

You could choose from two different tracks, one fast one and one going like a serpentine road, and we opted for the latter.

Soon we were in the middle of Rotorua, where the tour people would stay for the night.

What we had seen on Campermate (our primary app for finding camping spots) it was legal to camp in one of the parks in the city. Before that we had some sightseeing to do!

Rotorua is well known for its geothermal activity. We started with visiting the pretty central park where there was lots of free sightseeings, and even foot baths.

Then, we visited a Maori church in the northern part of the town. With the sunset everything was extra beautiful.

There were geothermal vents everywhere, and at some places, boiling water by the sidewalks!

As we didn’t have too much food we went to the supermarket. We managed to forgot some sort of spread, and while I went in again, Astrid was approached by someone interested in our bikes and tour, more specifically Michael. When he understood our plans for the night he took us to a friend of his, David, where we would spend the night in a real bed instead of a park. David was a bike mechanic, and both of those two went everywhere by bicycle instead of riding a car, which is pretty uncommon in New Zealand!

We had a delightful chat before going to bed just a bit too late, as it usually turns out!