During the weekends I have been trying to squeeze in all of the sightseeing attractions that I haven't got around to yet so Saturday the 8th saw myself and Danish girl Sandra heading off to the magical world of Hobbiton.
Whilst it was a perfectly enjoyable experience you did require a lot of imagination to recreate the famous scenes of the movie as the place was now overrun with sheep.
In the evening we had a housewarming party of sorts to celebrate the leaving of Richard and our rise to the top dog position in the house. Everybody had a thoroughly enjoyable and mostly over indulgent time. This was all very well but a small troop consisting of 6 of us had to wake up at 5:30 to undertake a particularly long hike across the beautiful Tongariro mountain range. When most of us went to sleep at 3:30 we were blissfully intoxicated and quite happy to get up at 5:30 to take the two hour bus ride to the start of the walk. When I woke them up they weren't quite so keen or even happy to be dragged out of bed. I myself had slept for about half an hour and was still numb to the effects of the hangover juice. After falling asleep on the bus however I found myself in the same mood set as the others, grumpy tired and hungover, facing a 17 km hike up and down mountains!!!
Regarded as the greatest one day walk in New Zealand it certainly proved to be a rewarding experience. We must have passed through 5 or 6 completely different kinds of environment from moss covered stones with small streams trickling through them to desert like open plains to beautifully serene emerald lakes to alpine plant laced mountainsides and finishing with rainforest type foliage next to a gentle flowing river. It really did offer diversity at every turn.
Fortunately by the end of the trek the others finally thanked me for waking them and we all collapsed in a heap waiting for our bus. We had done the hike in good time largely due to Hinnerk "the German tank" almost running the track combined with our sheer determination to get back to bed.
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