Historically speaking, Waitangi Day is when the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, 6th February 1840. It becomes a public holiday in New Zealand. This year, the day was on Friday, so we had a long weekend in down here. Therefore, me, in the middle of writing my research, I went to do my field research, accompanied by two of my friends. One of my friend, who has a car, lives in Pukekohe, the south-est part of Auckland City. So, me and my another friend took a train to Pukekohe on Friday morning. It took almost two hours from city center to Pukekohe. We started our weekend gate-away from Pukekohe.
Our first stop was Kaimai Cheese Factory, in Kaimai close to Matamata town, part of Matamata Piako District. We had lovely lunch over there.
Kaimai Steak Sandwich for $19.50. Indeed it is a big portion, but it made me full for the next eight hours.
After that, we continued to Matamata. My friends joined the tour to Hobbiton Movie Set. Meanwhile me, walking around the city center to do some research. It's a small town, so the city of the town is so small.
The coolest I-Site ever in New Zealand that I ever seen so far, the I-Site of Matamata.
Since the tour took three hours to finish, we decided to stay one night in the town and decide what to do in the next morning. Short story, we decided to just explore the town on Saturday morning, before we go back to Auckland.
We had our breakfast at Drew Drop Inn cafe, just cross the I-Site building. The must try menu is their Hobbit Pie, it is the best! We had great time during our breakfast, had some chat with the owner. She is a lovely lady. Don't forget to stop by in her cafe while visiting the town. Because you'll get more 'real-journey' to the middle earth.
We went to Wairere Falls after that. It is 22km away from the town center. This is the tallest water falls in North Island, New Zealand, 153m. It takes 45 minutes to reach the lookout, and it takes 90 minutes to reach the submit. We had no idea that the path was quite hard to do without any preparation. We only could reach the lookout. Maybe next time I will come back, to reach the summit. I want to see, how to look out everything from there.
When we went back to the parking lot, we're really tired and starving. It was almost 2 pm when we got back. Because we still wanted to spend some time in the Hamilton, we decided to have our late lunch in Hamilton.
