The Real Middle Earth

I have returned from the real middle earth, hair slightly still smelling like the sulphurous hot springs of Rotarua and sleep deprived with enough photographs to share with you but not too many because I was trying to see stuff outside of my camera lens. The Hobbtion Movie Set was one of the attractions that I was most excited to see and it was a wonderful little half day adventure that took around 4 hours in total and $110 NZD. It is located in Matamata which is an hour’s drive from the city centre of Rotarua and there’s a big tour bus which takes you from the souvenir gift store to the movie set. Once you start seeing the rolling green hills dotted with sheep, you’re almost there! Our tour guide and bus driver were wonderful and very knowledgeable about the films (they shared a lot of filming secrets) and at the end they shouted us drinks in the Green Dragon Inn. In the future, I would love to go back and do an evening tour because seeing the sun set and tip toeing around the hills with lanterns sounds like the most magical experience! There’s not much else to say so I’ll let the photographs do the talking and I’ll be back with some festive blog posts next Monday!

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Entertainment By The Sea

The Way We Were // Entertainment by the Sea // Like a transplanted English seaside resort, Coogee Beach attracted large crowds of day-trippers pouring in by tram to enjoy a variety of entertainments, the stone wall promenade, separate swimming baths for men and women and netted enclosure for beach swimming.

I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of the beach even when its not the summertime. In some respects, the cloudier skies and stronger winds makes for an ever better Bondi to Coogee walk or in my case Coogee to Bondi crawl. We took our time on a fine Sunday, grabbing acai bowls from The Courtyard first for some pre strolling fuel before setting off at about 12 pm and making sure to stop and rest at all the beaches in between: Clovelly, Bronte and Tamarama. There are about 7000 beaches in Australia alone but for anyone visiting, this 6km walk will let you see five.

When I was in Santa Monica, California a few years back, I bought the cutest little trinkets from the boardwalk; little thong key rings filled with Cali sand. When I first heard about Little Pieces Of, I fell in love with the similarly designed concept too; pea sized glass bubbles filled with sand from your favourite beaches! You can even send your own collected sand to the amazingly multi talented artist: Katie Shriner and she’ll custom make you a necklace. It’s the perfect summertime momento – I know of a bride who had the sand she stood on for her wedding ceremony turned into a necklace too – how precious is that? Go have a stalk of the Online store, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.