We had a brief tour of Auckland before proceeding to Rotorura. Auckland has their version of the Space Needle called the Sky Tower, with a great observation area. We stopped for a while at part of the movie set for The Hobbit and Lord of the Ring. It was actually quite good. The Oak tree above Bibo's house is 100% fake. Peter Jackson had a fiber glass model made like a tree he liked, with 100s of thousands of hand painted leaves added. The other trees in the area are real. The book said there is an Oak Tree above Bilbo's house, so that's what Jackson got.
Tonight our hotel is in an old volcano cauldron, complete with sulfur smells and nearby geysers, which we will see tomorrow.
Auckland harbor
View from the Sky Tower
A hobbit hole
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