[Buckland Road]

Taking advantage of the long Labour Day weekend and the clear weather forecast, we decided to drive down south and explore Hamilton. One of the places that we dropped by was Matamata, the site where Hobbiton from Lord Of The Rings trilogy was shot.

[Beautiful vistas all around us]

Travelling to the sheep farm site is quite a surreal experience. We drove almost an hour along the winding Buckland Road and pass vast hilly slopes to get to our destination. In some parts of the journey, our GPS seems to go offroad.

[Man... this one's fat]

Driving here feels as though we’ve been transported to Middle Earth. Along way, we stopped to enjoy the view and took some photos.

[Baaa...aa..aa..aa..]

[Flock of sheeps]

Thinking that we were lost and were almost about to call it in, we finally arrived at our destination much to our relief.

Thank God for GPS.

[The Shire's Rest]

We decided not to do the movie site tour as it would take 2 hours and the kids wouldn’t be able to enjoy it anyway. Instead, we opt for the sheep farm experience which is NZD16 per adult but free for kids aged under 5. Kinda pricey for adults considering it’s generally for kids.

You can purchase the Ring of Power here too (only NZD690.00).

[Yeah, our guide has the Ring of Power]

Liberty had a lot of fun feeding the sheeps and lambs.

[Legs up!]

Joaquin don’t seem to like them though… couldn’t stand them licking his legs.

[A master at work]

Matt showing us how sheeps are sheared.

[This is where our carpets come from]

According to Matt, the world record holder continuously sheared 850 sheeps in 1 day. That averages to about 30 seconds per sheep.

[Perfect weather, beautiful vistas]

After the tour, we drove back to Hamilton city pass Cambridge. (And no, we did not run down any Hobbits or came across any gay Grey wizard with fireworks.)

[Ordered Angus and Big Mac for dinner on our way home]

[Birthday cake!]

Joaquin turns two today…

[Lego]

Bought some Lego for my kids. Compared to the time when I was young, there seems to be a lot more variation of Lego bricks (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Bionicles, Technics, etc) in the market. It’s not getting any cheaper too.

[Basic bricks]

For me, the best will always be the basic brick set and leave the rest to imagination.

I feel like a kid again.

I’ve been asked if there are any English accent here. Quite frankly, I’ve not encountered any difficult accent but have found some Kiwi slangs here that are pretty amusing.

Choice: awesome, very good.

L: Choice T! How can we repay you?
T: There is no charge for awesomeness… but a bonus recommendation would be nice.

Eh: Pronounced ‘ay’, often used to turn a statement into a question.

J: The liverpool match was pretty intense eh?
T: I don’t have SkyTV.

Mate: Buddy, quintessential Kiwi greeting.

Stranger #1: Hi mate, did bus 966 just passed by?
Stranger #2: Morning mate, anyone here needs a ride to town?
Cashier: How’s it going mate?
Petrol attendant: See ya later, mate.
Neighbour: Hey mate, how’s it going?

Needless to say… almost everyone is your mate here.

Sweet-as: Cool.

H: That’s sweet-as!
T: (Thinking: sweet ass?) Where?