Hobbiton

What is Hobbiton ~by Tejas

Named after the city in the Shire this is where the outside of the Shire in the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit was filmed.  All the Hobbit holes are implanted into the ground on a hill.  You can see the party tree and the lake in Hobbiton.  The books were written in 1938 by a guy named J.R.R Tolkien and the movies filmed in 1998 and 1999 were directed by Peter Jackson.  For those of you who take the Lord of the Rings against Harry Potter is a battle the Lord of the Rings are older and have more adventure.  It all started when a helicopter that was carrying Peter Jackson over part of New Zealand was carrying him and he saw a beautiful place of land and decided to do his movie set here.  Usually people take down their set and leave the land open but the people who did Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit decided to keep it up and then people decided to make tours to tour where every thing was done and that’s what we did.  Now 650,000 people visit the set every year.  It’s a beautiful scene from the very top of the hill from Bag End (The Main Character house).  I’ve mentioned the word Hobbit a few times before.  A Hobbit is a character from the Lord of the Rings and is below 5’5”.  In real life you had to be between 3ft to 5’5” or else you weren’t aloud to be a hobbit.  A place over the bridge was called the Green Dragon Inn.  This is the bar of Hobbiton where the people would stay for a drink.  At the Green Dragon Inn my brothers had a non-alcoholic drink and my parents had a alcoholic cider.  I threw up on the car ride so I was only aloud to have water.  In the end against all movies and books Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit beats every thing and do it with greatness. Now that you are all up to date, Jovan will write about our trip to the set down below.

Visiting the Hobbiton Movie Set ~ by Jovan

We visited the Hobbiton Movie Set Tour in Rotorua. This is where the lord of the rings and Hobbit films were filmed. When we got to Hobbiton we went to the gift shop there were so many cool things that we got carried away from getting to our bus on time. We bought a Gandalf sitting statue for my dad’s desk, and my mom bought a Christmas ornament for our tree and got the famous sign that says: no admittance except for party business. Luckily, they gave us ticket to a seat on to the next bus. We saw all the hobbit holes and out most favorite one is Bilbos hole. We also saw the house of Sam Wise Gamgey and some of you might think that Froto in the Lord of The Rings films that he was the hero but no, Sam was the hero of the movies. And one thing that we learned was that when Sam hugs his daughter in the Return of The King film that is his real daughter. 

New Zealand Adventures

Waiheke Island - by Jovan

We took a boat from Auckalnd to Waiheke Island. It is New Zealand’s most densely populated island. The island is very hilly with a few flat areas. It has 9250 permanent residents and an estimated 3400 residents with holiday homes. Waiheke island has 9 beaches. We visited one of the beaches named Shelly beach. It has a million shells, we have never seen so many before, it seemed like there was more shells than sand so we collected a few. Some of the shells were rings, some broken, and some with different colors and shapes. We also visited the Cable Bay Vineyards. My parents tried wine and me and my brothers played Monopoly Deal. We had pizza for lunch and we hiked for one and a half hours along the side of the island toward the ferry to go back. It was a long day, we got back to our hotel late at night.

Glass Bottom and Snorkeling Adventure - Tejas

We drove to Hahei which took two and a half hours from Auckalnd. There we went on an Glass Bottom Boat adventure. This starts out like a normal boat ride, but then when we got further out into the ocean the bottom of the boat rises and its all glass, so you can see down into the ocean while we were moving.

On the glass bottom boat, we saw a bunch fish and an Eagle Ray.  At the beginning we saw a lot of tiny fish and we saw an eel move but we only got a glimpse at the back of it, but as we got further out, we saw more fish we saw a fish called a snapper.  Snappers are fish with dots that glow underwater.  Then that’s when we saw it the Eagle Ray an Eagle Ray is smaller than a Sting Ray which is smaller than the biggest one the Manta Ray.  It looks like its not that deadly, but its stingers hurt really bad the guy told us.  Its wingspan can reach up to 2 ½ meters long.  We drove around Cathedral Cove which is one of the most visited places in all New Zealand.  Me and my dad went snorkeling. Jovan went in but found it to cold.  At first, I was scared because the guy said that there was jellyfish in these waters (and as we know I'm not lucky with them) but I was able to face my fear, go in and have good time well doing it.  We also learned  most of the small beaches and rocks were formed with volcanic rock. It was a good time!

Kia Ora from New Zealand!

All About New Zealand ~ by Jovan

We are spent two weeks in New Zealand so we have a lot of things to catch up on. 

The total size of New Zealand is 268,680 square km. The population of New Zealand is 4.700 million (ah… just saying that that’s kinda a big number). Some of the major cities that we went to are Auckland and Queenstown. The capitol city is Wellington. Two of the biggest industries in New Zealand are mining and fishing. New Zealand officially became an independent country in 1947.

The first people that came here are the Maori people. They were settlers from Eastern Polynesia who came to New Zealand in waves. In the Maori language to say hello is Kia Ora. Everywhere we went everyone would say Kia Ora to say hi to us, which also means healthy life to you.There are two parts of New Zealand. North and South Island. A common symbol and an animal you can only find in New Zealand is the kiwi bird. The kiwi bird is a flightless bird. The average kiwi bird egg weighs 300 grams. 

There is another common symbol in New Zealand, it is called the silver fern. It is grown everywhere in New Zealand. Its feather is the symbol for the rugby team that they play with. For those who don’t know rugby it is football but a little different. 

Auckland Whale and Dolphin Safari ~ by Nix

We first landed on North Island in Auckland. When we were in Auckland we went on Whale and Dolphin Safari. We went on a big boat with 50 other people and it was 5 hours in the ocean. Tejas, Jovan, and I got super wet because we stood at the nose of the boat when it was leaving and the good thing is that we eventually moved and dried off.   When we were out on the boat we saw birds that can fly but were sitting on the water. That means that there is an animal under it. We saw birds that would fly into the water like bullets and eat the fish on the top of the water. We saw a lot of dolphins, and three of them were swimming with our boat.  I named the 3 of them Joey, Pooey, and Doey,  so Joey is the baby, Doey is the mommy, and Pooey is the daddy. 

The Brisbane Heat!

The Brisbane Heat Game! ~ by Tejas

Last night we went to a Cricket game in Brisbane.  We saw the Brisbane Heat play against the Sydney 6ers.  It was awesome!  The Brisbane Heat is Brisbane’s Cricket team.  Brisbane Heat is approaching it’s ninth season in the Big Bash League.  The Big Bash League is the Australian Cricket division.  The home stadium of the Brisbane Heat is the Gabba.  The Gabba is home of the Brisbane Heat, Brisbane Lions, and the Queensland Bulls.  The Gabba was established in 1895.  It seats 42,000 people.  We went with my dads work friends.  At half time they had a light show with fireworks, lights, and fire.  There was a dance cam that would record people dancing.  There are five restaurants there, for take away food only (that means food to go) We had french fries and ice cream.  In the end we had lots of fun and we learned more about how to play Cricket. They didn’t make it to the semi-finals this year, but they might next year. All in all it was a great day, I really enjoyed it.