For everyone who reads the books or/and watches the trilogy of the Lord of the Rings or the trilogy of the Hobbit will definitely dreams to visit the shire. The shire is a region where the hobbit lives. It can be defined as Hobbiton village. The shire is originally a fictional place, until being built for real for the purpose of the movie in 1998. 

Peter Jackson (the director of LotR) and his team used several places in New Zealand for the movie. Yet, the one and only place that still remains until today is only the shire. The shire or more famous as Hobbiton village is located in Matamata, New Zealand. It takes 2 hours drive from Auckland and the tour takes 3 hours. I went there several months ago as part of my research and I need to go back again soon. 

Oh well, here's the picture that I took during my visit. Enjoy! 

After staying for one night in Taupo, me and my friends continued to drive to our next destination. Our next destination is Huka Falls. Turns out that the water from the Huka falls drains to Lake Taupo across the Waikato River. Whenever I go to fall in New Zealand, I always amazed. I don't know why, it always makes me think how beautiful and amazing it is. In my opinion, fall is the second most amazing God's creation in this universe under the category of landscape. 

It is not only that, I also amazed with how the way New Zealand government organize and maintain the site. As a visitor, we don't need to pay anything to enjoy the view. So wonderful. 

 

Before heading to Auckland, we stopped by at Tongariro National Park. We planned to hike up to Mt. Ruapehu. But unfortunately, due to the heavy rain + wind and a little bit of snow, we couldn't go up. 

Due to the weather, all facilities were closed on that day. Too bad. But the good side, I have a reason to come back again someday in the future. 

Overall, even though I only spent two days and one night during this trip, I enjoyed so much. It was a lovely trip with lovely friends. Until next time mate! 

Hello everyone! It has been a long time, since the last time I published my last post. I am so sorry that I have been gone and kind of forget to update my blog. But don't worry, I am back right now. 

Anyway, I am going to continue my story from my last trip. On my last post, I mentioned that I was going to Lake Taupo. Indeed, we stayed at Taupo for one night. Lake Taupo is the second largest lake in New Zealand. It was my second time going to lake taupo. It was a rainy day during my first visit. I visited it last year, 2013. 

Apparently on my second visit, it was already dark when we got there and to be honest, there was nothing that we could do except wandering around the lake. 

Our next stop was Kiwi 360, a famous kiwi farming. It is still located in the Bay of Plenty region, to be exact in Te Puke.  It is only around 25 minutes drive from Tauranga. What we can do on this farm? We can join the tour, it's $20 for an adult and $18 for student. They have a specific time for the tour. Unfortunately, when we got there, the tour was already started. Then, we only took some pictures with the giant kiwi in the gate. 

We also tried some kiwi inside, in the lobby and had some chat with the workers. They said that the soil around Te Puke is really good for Kiwi, because it is surrounded by volcanic areas. In the Bay of Plenty it there are more than 2,200 farms. The size of the farm is very variative,  from only one hectare to more than hundred hectares. The Kiwi 360 is around 14 hectares. 

From the giant kiwi, we continued to Rotorua district. But we stopped by a lake, Lake Rotoiti to have some snack. Here's some picture that I took over there, 

Our next stop was a botanical garden in Rotorua. Because of rain, I didn't take any picture at all over there. I have some pictures and story about it in here. We had lunch as well in Rotorua. Then, we drove along to Taupo, for our next destination.

To be continued..  

A month ago I went travelling with my friend to Bay of Plenty Region. It's located in the south part of Auckland. It takes around 4-5 hours by car. It was my second time to visit the region. I went there for the first time last year, during summer holiday. Unfortunately, my HD external broken and all the pictures are there. I couldn't post anything from that trip. Anyway, during this time, we went to Tauranga and Mount Manganui. Tauranga is the name of the suburban town in the region, and Mount Manganui is also the name of the suburban town. The name comes from the name of the mountain that located in that town. 

Good Morning from Tauranga

There is a super delicious fish and chips restaurant in Tauranga, very close to the beach. Yet, when we got there, it's still closed. So we couldn't have tried. The good thing is, it can be a reason to go back to Tauranga again in the future :p 

That mountain is Mount Manganui

Actually, the mount Manganui is a small mountain if compare to other mountain in the world, such as Krakatau Mountain in Indonesia. From the picture above, we can see that the mountain it's small. There are some options to hike up the mountain, by bike or by walking. Even, there are different paths that we can choose to hike up, the short or the long path. The short path needs around 30 minutes. The path is really easy to walk in, everyone can use it even for beginner. When I went there last year, during summer, a lot of people were jogging around using the short path and some of them bring their kids as well. It means, it's safe for everyone. However, most of the people got mistaken that Mount Manganui is part of Tauranga, because the location. Indeed, it is very close between Tauranga and Mount Manganui, but it is totally different area. 

My breakfast, pancake and cup of tea

Since the restaurant that we want to go was still closed, me and my friends decided to have a breakfast in Mt. Manganui. There are a lot of small cafes in the seashore, and our choice fell on Dixie cafe. Most of the cafes only provide a beacon for the breakfast menu. Dixie provides other options, a pancake with an ice cream on top. I am not eating a beacon, so I choose pancake over that. It was really yummy and the tea was really good enough to warm up during winter. 

It's a good start for our trip and I will post our next destination soon.  

Since there's no transportation that I could use to wander around, I only spent wandering around in the town center. Walking from one park to another, enjoying the air, the hush, and the beautiful weather. I am definitely going back again to this town later, because I want to go to the Hobbiton. 

Hi everyone, it's been a loooonng time since I posted in this blog. Well, so much things happened in the past months, I moved to the new apartment (which is closer to uni and located in the city center - literally), preparing for the research proposal (can't believe one year already passed and one year more to go to finish my degree), applying for a new student visa, and I got a part time job in a new place (it's waroeng legianz and their website is here). 

Thankfully, my research proposal got approved (super duper thanks go to my favorite program leader, Hammish and my supervisor, Charles), and my student visa is extended. Oh, my new workplace is an Indonesian restaurant, which open from Monday to Saturday during winter season. Most of the customers are new Zealanders who work close to the restaurant.

The restaurant is located in victoria park market, right in front of the victoria park. The most popular meals among customers are Mie Goreng (fried noodle) and Nasi Goreng (fried rice). They have five types of it, with chicken, with beef, with lamb, with seafood, or only vegetable. Even, if the customer wants it pure vegetarian, no fish oil and no egg, they can make it special for them. The restaurant wants to give their best for the customer, they try to understand what the customer wants. For Muslim, don't worry all the ingredients are halal, because they only use halal meat. 

Well, that's all so far from me, cheers! 

It is only 10 minutes distances from Whangarei City. Hidden treasure inside the park. Because from the outside, it looks like a normal park, where it can use to jog or just sitting around. Yet after pass the bridge, it can be seen up the beautiful waterfall.


Tutukaka Marina

We had our lunch in here. If I am not mistaken, the name of the place is Marina Pizzeria. They have a great coffee and seafood in my opinion. Tutukaka marina is the center part of Tutukaka coast, and it is very close from Whangarei Falls, only around 10-15 minutes driving miles. However, the Tutukaka coast itself, has chosen as the second greatest coast in the world by National Geography. It was chosen because of the beautiful sandy beach, the waves, and the structure of the coast itself.   

Don't ask me how to go to this cave, because we didn't know their existence until we found the signs on the way to Paihia. It costs $15 to enter the cave and no photograph allowed inside. Inside the caves, there are thousands of glow worms, with the amazing rock formations and green rainforest as their home. There is also a tale about the cave, the guide told me during the visit. It said there was a woman lived in the cave, hiding from her husband for a long time.

After finishing with our coffee and food, we head to north, to the Whangarei City. It took around 2 - 3 hours to get there from Auckland. It was a rainy day, raining all the day with a little wind in between. Unfortunately, when we finally found the city, it was already getting dark. All the shops were close and the city looks like silent hill because of the fog after the rain. So we just scrolling around and took some pictures before it's getting darker.  

Claphams National Clock Museum