My Pictures

The North Island trip - Hobbiton and the ferry south

Hobbiton - the shire! (51kb) Looking across the lake to where the pub, the bridge and the mill were (27kb) Joe was in his element! (47kb) Most of the hobbit houses where only made with concrete fronts covered with styrofoam, but they had real glass windows and wooden doors (83kb) The location of this tree next to the lake in this remote location was the reason this area near Matamata was chosen as the shire (39kb) Bilbo Baggin's hosue, the only one built so you could walk around inside (58kb) Looking toward the lane where Gandolf first came into the shire (46kb)
Some of the rocks were just styrofoam, but these were the real thing (67kb) After leaving Matamata, we headed west to Waitomo, then south to Wanganui (51kb) This is some of the land on the western side of the North Island (96kb) It was April, but that is autumn in NZ (31kb) Back to Wellington for the ferry across the strait - this is the Beehive, the national capitol (72kb) The entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound is quite narrow - and that is the North Island in the distance (25kb) Coming into Picton at about 4:30 in the afternoon (45kb)
Queen Charlotte Sound, as we drove west toward Nelson, Motueki, and Abel Tasman National Park (28kb)