Ok, so I know that I’ve been a lazy poo and uploaded the next post late. Sorry about that. In my defence the internet is super slow so it takes aaaaaages to upload all the pictures (we’re talking hours here). I’m going to do two weekends in one post so it may be a little bit longer (but then if you’re not interested you can always click off, right?).

So since the last post where me and dad went on our little road trip, life has gone back to normal. It’s funny, I hadn’t really been particularly homesick until dad came and then left – I think it reminded me of the family-ness I don’t have so much here. But that said, I only moped for a day or two!

Sooo, last weekend I went to a medieval picnic (SO AWESOME!). The thing I love so much about Ildhafn (the medieval guild I’ve joined) is how into it everyone gets! So people were turning up in full dress (yeah, I got some funny looks on the train) and were doing some really cool stuff, playing instruments from the time period or making knife sheaths… One of the guys had made his own bread to a proper recipe and had the proper leather and wood shoes from the time! I was very jealous!

I met some super nice people and one of the ladies offered to give me a lift to archery the next day (It’s pretty much impossible to get to some places round Auckland without a car). So last Sunday I did archery practice! Bearing in mind that the last time I tried archery I managed to hit a pushchair BEHIND me, I was not very confident that I would even go anywhere near the target but … *drum roll* … I hit the milk bottle in the middle, not once but twice! (I’m very excited about this). I have to say though that it came at a price and I could barely move my neck and shoulders the next day! I think I’m going to have to build up some of those muscles 😉

This Tuesday we had a crazy powerful storm. Well, *I* thought it was crazy powerful – not sure everyone else was so impressed. Apparently it was a category two cyclone and it tore up huge trees (which kinda sucks) and left a lot of people without power (luckily not me!) – some people are still without. Most unfortunately I came home knackered that day and crawled into bed completely forgetting I’d left my washing on the line. Some of it was still there when I woke up the next morning but most of it was strewn about like an Easter egg hunt in the garden. I got most of it back except for a pair of my knickers that I saw was hanging from the next door neighbours apple tree like a Christmas tree angel. I didn’t go ask for them back and consoled myself that they can’t *know* they were mine! (well, the union jack love hearts on them might have given it away but I can’t be the only British person round here, right?). I don’t know where they are now but the next day they were gone. We had some more pretty strong winds so I like to think that whatever tree they are adorning now is far enough away that their origins can’t be traced back.

Then this Saturday the same super awesome lady who took me to archery invited me to go fabric shopping with her to find stuff to make a late 14th century gown. You can imagine how much I enjoyed that! I spent my birthday money on some super cheap brocade, green cotton and some pale cream silk/linen offcuts. They were all end-of-line surplus things so I got them super cheap ($27 or £14 for enough material to make an over dress and 2 different pairs of sleeves). I also got some leather offcuts which I am now using to make my own pair of medieval overshoes. The idea is that I can put them over the top of some normal shoes so I still have comfortable feet but don’t have to look too 21st century at the next picnic / feast etc.

The other exciting news is … *drumroll again* … that I may be getting a car later this week! I might not of course, but hopefully if it isn’t sold before I go check it out (with an AA dude who actually knows about cars) Thursday, then I might be getting a 1998 Mazda Demio for $2500 (£1300). It’s twenty years old, so only a few years my junior and a little scratched and dented and dated but I have hopes that we’ll go on lots of adventures together!

Well, that about covers the last two weeks and hopefully next time I won’t be so woefully behind on my posting!

Speak to you guys soon!
Annabelle

It’s so weird! When I’m traveling here I’m so busy having so much fun and everything seems so normal but then I realise “I’m on holiday in New Zealand!” And I have to kick myself to believe it.

Rotorua was awesome! Bubbling pools of thick mud and boiling pools of clear water stained blue with cobalt surrounded by skeletal branches of trees bleached white with the silica. Rocks stained Canary yellow with sulphur and bridges over boiling rivers. It was seriously cool, and definitely felt like something out of a fantasy novel (although some of the mud pools definitely looked prehistoric). It’s hard not to feel like a badass when you feel yourself emerging from the mists into a landscape like the front doorstep to hell.

It’s so strange to just see steam rising from the forest, filling the valley floor with billowing smoke. And I know this is gonna sound daft but it’s really cool to see such pointy hills! We don’t get hills this pointy at home!

In the evening we walked through the redwood forest on these little walkways suspended from the trees. At night they lit up parts of the forest but even so it was only when we came back to walk the forest floor during the day that I could appreciate JUST HOW HUGE those trees are!
If anyone is coming to NZ any time soon I totally recommend here! Any holiday pictures you take will look totally awesome! 😉

The cool thing is that when driving between Rotorua and Taupo we were on a winding road through steep green hills that could be the downs of the shire, then through a thick, dark forest that really could be Fangorn and for just a moment I’m in Middle Earth. Damn, I wish I’d remembered to bring my cloak! Also, as I wrote this, just driving along I’ve seen that one of the hills is smoking! Like thick white smoke coming out of the top of a hill … casual … 
So … just on the way forwards from Taupo now. That was awesome! One of the coolest bits was when we went to where part of the barrel-rapids scene was filmed in the Hobbit. It’s a river going into the lake and normally it’s just a small, relatively slow moving streamlet with clear pools. But then twice a day they open the dam gates a little and all this water comes rushing through and the river swells up a good four meters to become a huge, roaring stretch of rapids. And you can stand on the bridge over it which is kinda awesome.

We also took a nice boat trip on the lake to see the Maori carvings at sunset. I looked at them and thought “wow, they must be ancient, I wonder when they were carved” … the seventies! Not quite as ancient as I thought!

It’s my birthday today as we drive over to Waitomo. This morning I got the most fantastic long blue Merino wool cloak from mum and dad. And it is so thick and warm, I think I could be walking in a full hurricane and the wind won’t be getting through. I can’t wait to wear it tomorrow to Hobbiton (with the elf ears I bought of course)! I think it’s the most majestic cloak I have!

Well, I’m back now! The glow worm caves were amazing but even better than the caves was a walk me and dad did afterwards. It took us on a wooden walkway on the side of a gorge with the water rushing below us and through natural stone tunnels, eventually ending in a platform reaching out into a huge cavern with a river at the bottom, dotted with stalegtites.

We stood there as the sun set and the glow worms came out like greeny blue stars on the roof of the cave. It was seriously awesome! 😀 Then we walked back in the dark (I wouldn’t let dad use his torch), and found that all the stone walls and trees that we’d passed earlier were in fact full of constellations of glowworms! And the best thing was that it was free! I tried to take so many pictures and not one really came out as any good!

Hobbiton was … well, Hobbiton was Hobbiton. I didn’t expect it to be as amazing as the film set. I expected it to be kinda small and gimmicky. In fact it was neither of those things, it was big and it was really brilliant! There were really huge pumpkins (apparently the guardeners were having a competition) and so many Hobbit holes and flowers and vegetables and the old mill… I even got to have a pint of (surprisingly delicious) ale in the Green Dragon! It was really a dream come true!

With dad having left today there’s a bit of the whole end-of-the-holidays-gloom in the air but it’s only two more days until the weekend!