Haka - days 1 & 2.

The first day of a rally is often a slightly odd affair. Not odd, in any unpleasant way, more it's a case of not feeling fully in the groove.  We have some novices on this rally and I think that is particularly hard. I remember my first day on Peking to Paris, having never used a tulip road book; there was a very slight air of hysteria about me. Everyone is doing really well though and no one got lost, that I heard, anyway.

New Zealand isn't very big, you know that. So, if you looked at a point to point map of where we have been for the last two days, you'd think it had taken about three hours.  Not a bit of it.  We're here to fully see the country and so we are zig zagging all over the place to take in the natural wonders. 

Day 1. The is country's turbulent geological past was very evident.  Masses of small, sometimes tiny, hills often with the perfect cones of old volcanoes.  And green. Oh so very green. I always think that the green of rice growing is the greenest green you can get. That was before I came to NZ. 

I have no photographs from day one.  See what I mean about not being in the groove?  I had a bit of a rally mind set and didn't stop to photograph. I made do with shooting from the moving car. Mistake. Every single picture I took was dreadful. Just take it from me. It was lovely. 

Day 2 the first stop was at a classic car museum just outside Hamilton. Everything was beautifully presented. There was a surprise for me as they had a Bristol 401. Oh dear though. It was painted gold, had been reupholstered in plastic and had, what looked like, a black plastic dash with white buttons. No, no, no. 

Hobbiton is the original  movie set of the Shire from Lord of the Rings. My, it's pretty. You can understand why Peter Lord chose that spot.  The little hobbit houses are perfect, from the outside, anyway, inside, as usual on a film set, there is nothing. On top of Bag End, Bilbo and Frodo's house, there is a giant oak tree. This, unlike the other trees on the set, is an entire fabrication, 200,000 leaves were individually stuck on it. It appears in the film for about thirty seconds. 

We are staying in the Bay of Planty at Rotorua, next to the lake tonight. I haven't had a good look around yet, but I can certainly smell it. The sulphuric pong is very strong. The lake is actually the caldera of a volcano that last erupted around 240,000 years ago, so we should be safe!